Music research shapes our understanding of music and the world. Since the research conclusions are always arrived at following a certain methodology, Professor Pirkko Moisala has sought to renew the perspectives and methods of music research. The research also draws attention and prestige to its subject. To this end Moisala often selects her research topics amongst those that have previously been marginalised in musicology and ethnomusicology, such as the music cultures of minorities, women composers and gender in music.

Moisala's current research project “Deleuzian Music Research” (2012-16), which is funded by the Academy of Finland, tries to renew music research through the process philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and his collaborator Felix Guattari. The project approaches music as a verb, ‘to music’, which encompasses the social functions related to producing, performing, experiencing and listening to sound.

The material and the conceptual are equally important, according to the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari. They also encourage people to think about the relationships between different kinds of forces, ideas and phenomena. The sub-projects in the research project examine encounters between philosophical concepts and various ‘musickings’. The themes of the research project are the affects and materiality of musicking, becoming deaf through music, the concepts created by movement, and the ethico-aesthetics of voice expression,” says Pirkko Moisala.

For more on “Deleuzian Music Research” visit the project's website.