Dr Ruth Dockwray
Associate Professor
Ruth is an Associate Professor of Popular Music and programme leader for the BA Popular Music Performance programme at the University of Chester. As a musicologist, she regularly delivers papers at conferences and was most recently the Keynote Speaker for the 'New Perspectives in Popular Music Research: Changes and Turmoil' Conference at the University of Agder, in Norway. Her media work includes contributions to BBC Radio 4, BBC 2 and BBC 4 programmes, discussing the musicological features of a range of popular music. In addition to delivering modules at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, she undertakes advisory work for Universities including the Open University and is the external examiner for the BA (Hons) Popular and Commercial Music course at the University of South Wales.
Ruth teaches across the Music Production and Popular Music Performance programmes, at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, delivering a range of practical, historical and analysis modules. She is also a PhD co-supervisor (dissertation on gender and heavy metal).
As a musicologist, Ruth's research covers aspects of musicology of production, focusing on proxemics and sonic spatialisation in the context of popular music recordings and music for video games. Her PhD thesis focussed on rock anthems with a range of her work and public engagement discussing and analysing the recorded and live aspects of the music of Queen.
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.