Dr Ruth Dockwray
Associate Professor of Popular Music, Programme Leader for BA Popular Music Performance, BA Music and Co-Programme Leader for BA Music Production and Performance
Ruth is the Programme Leader for the BA Popular Music Performance and BA Music courses. She teaches a range of practical, historical and analysis modules across the undergraduate and postgraduate courses. She is on the editorial board for Popular Music: In Practice journal and is the external examiner for the BA (Hons) Popular Music and Society course at the University of Derby.
After graduating from the University of Liverpool with a PhD in Music, Ruth worked at the University of Surrey as a researcher, whilst continuing to perform and contribute to various music media broadcasts. She appeared as the academic expert on the BBC Radio 4 programme ‘A Three Minute Education’ with David Hepworth and on BBC Radio Solent analysing football anthems as part of the 2014 World Cup. Ruth’s television appearances include BBC 2’s three-part documentary ‘Secrets of the Pop Song: Anthems’ and BBC 4’s ‘Let’s Have a Party! The Piano Genius of Mrs Mills’.
Public guest talks include ‘Synaesthesia’ for Audio Network and a presentation on ‘Sound, Music and Car Audio’ for the Guild of Motoring Journalists and Harman Audio. In 2010, she was an invited speaker at the Postgraduate Seminars at La Sorbonne, Paris and regularly attends international and national conferences, such as IASPM, CHARM, Living Stereo Conference in Ottawa, Canada, IDAF (Improvisation and Digital Arts Festival), EuroMAC and Audiomostly.
Ruth teaches modules on music analysis, popular music performance, music theory, and contextual and historical issues of popular music.
Ruth has also worked at the University of Surrey and at Southampton Solent University where she taught historical, critical and analytical studies of pop music, music semiotics and musicology of popular music production.
Ruth is a research network lead for the department of Performing Arts and her research interests include; theory of music production, sonic spatialisation and use of surround sound, video game music and the music of Queen.
Selected research projects, include:
AHRC-funded project on spatialisation with Professor Allan Moore at University of Surrey
Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada-funded project with Dr Karen Collins: ‘Understanding and Improving Musical User-Generated Content in Video Games’.
Books
Dockwray, R. Queen: Anthems and Complex Songs (Tokyo: Bokkasha). 2015.
Chapters of books
Collins, K. & Dockwray, R.. ‘Drive, Speed and Narrative in the Soundscapes of Racing Games’. In M. Mera, R. Sadoff, B. Winters (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Screen Music and Sound, pp. London: Routledge. 2017.
Dockwray, R. ‘Proxemic Interaction in Popular Music Recordings’ in Mixing Music: Perspectives on Music Production. Hepworth-Sawyer, R and Hodgson, J. (eds), pp. London: Routledge. 2016.
Albiez, S., & Dockwray, R. ‘Before and After Eno: Situating ‘The Recording Studio as Compositional Tool’. In S. Albiez & D. Pattie (Eds.), Brian Eno: Oblique Music, pp. London: Bloomsbury. 2016.
Dockwray, R., & Collins, K. A Symphony of Sound: Surround Sound in Formula One Racing Games. In P. Théberge, K. Devine & T. Everrett (Eds.), Living Stereo: Histories and Cultures of Multichannel Sound, pp. 247-65. USA: Bloomsbury. 2015.
Full Papers in refereed journals
Collins, K. & Dockwray, R. ‘Experimental Sound Mixing for “The Well”, a Short Film Made for Tablets’, Leonardo Music Journal, posted online June 2017
Collins, K., & Dockwray, R. ‘Sonic Proxemics and the Art of Persuasion: An Analytical Framework’. Leonardo Music Journal, 25, 53-56. 2015
Dockwray, R. ‘Proxemic Interaction in Popular Music Recordings’, Popular Music: In Practice, 1. Online. 2013.
Moore, A.F., Dockwray, R. & Schmidt, P. 'A Hermeneutics of Spatialisation for Recorded Song', Twentieth-Century Music 6, 1. 83-114. 2011
Dockwray. R & Moore, A.F., ‘Configuring the Sound-box 1965-72’, Popular Music, 29, 2. 181–197. 2010
Moore, A.F. & Dockwray, R, ‘The establishment of the virtual performance space in rock’; Twentieth-Century Music, 5, 12, 219-241. 2008
Research Reports
Ruth Dockwray and Allan F. Moore, ‘Evidencing transferable skills in undergraduate music education’. 2007
- PhD Music – Institute of Popular Music, University of Liverpool.
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).
- PGCTL(HE) – Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education – Southampton Solent University.
- BMus (Hons) in Music - University of Wales, Bangor.