Lucy Durán, Professor Emerita at SOAS University of London, presents her ideas about methodologies, research potential and impact of working in the studio as “producer” of music of oral tradition (in her case, primarily from Mali).  She suggests that production in the studio can be an intense fieldwork experience that flips around the “practice-based research” trope of fieldwork, to “research based- practice”. 

With 33 albums, featuring Toumani Diabaté, Bassekou Kouyaté, Ballaké Sissoko and others, she has won three Grammy nominations and numerous awards and has established the signature sound of those musicians, though the process was not always easy and involved much preparation and deliberation. Her primary aim is to provide an informed representation of the individual within the tradition.  Durán thinks her approach to “producing” is better described as “enabling”, a term that reflects collaborative, informal interaction on both sides of the “control room”, providing space for negotiating composition, and encouraging creativity and personal style. But even as ‘enabler’, there are issues of positionality and power imbalance that need to be addressed.   

Viewing: “Immersion – films as research output”. https://vimeo.com/458602131 a very short film with insights into Durán’s work in the field and studio

Listening: here is Lucy’s playlist of the albums that she has “produced/ enabled” https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4FiIBVxpgnWCPJU8MXXp48?si=f4eeb829915e4f1d