David Scott

My expertise is based on my practice as a widely pubished songwriter, performer, broadcaster and commentator as well as through my work in originating academic programmes of study, developing knowledge exchange projects as well as through practice-based research. My creative practice output includes many published albums, songs and high-profile performances, my broadcasting has concentrated on Scottish music culture with six full series of radio documentaries on Scottish albums broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland and BBC 6 Music; some of this work has been adapted and developed for academic presentations within conferences and in postgraduate teaching. I have also adapted creative practice in this way by using my community music practice as the basis for some recent practice-based-research around mining and traditional song narrative (Pits, Ponies, People & Stories). In summary my research expertise resides primarily in the following areas:

• Songwriting
• Popular Music History
• Scottish Music Culture
• Community and Participatory Arts

My recent activities have centred around practice-based research undertaken as part of South Lanarkshire Council's Pits, Ponies, People & Stories heritage-based project. My sound piece Where Is God, which considers contemporary narratives around the Syrian refugee crisis through the lens of the famous traditional song The Blantyre Explosion, was presented at CCA Glasgow and Tokyo Metropolitan University as part of the Azimuth project in 2016. 

I developed one of my BBC Classic Scottish Albums programmes - Glasvegas - for a paper at the 2015 Singing Storytellers Symposium at Cape Breton University titled Stabbed! Towards a Musical Tartan Noir and I continue to develope research ideas around the list of programmes made.

More recently I have completed a book chapter in collaboration with Dr Jo Collinson-Scott for Bloomsbury Academic and their Guide To The Singer Songwriter on sustaining careers in the digital age. The book will be published later in 2017.

I am currently bringing some research around Scottish music culture together with my own music output for a practice-based PhD proposal to commence later 2017

My direction for forthcoming research is based on my PhD proposal. In short this is to complete a music project I started then abandoned in 1988, finishing the recording of a large body of work and adding new material to sit alonside this and essentialy complete it. The focus of the research is currently being directed and refined however the main areas include:

• The role and function of the traditional 'singer-songwriter' within 80's pop culture
• The phenomenon of the 'unfinished album'
• The artist and the aging process

The output is intended as a completed album release, a concert performance and accompanying thesis. 

• Contemporary Songwriting within the school and community environment
• Studio music production 
• Radio production and presentation