We are looking for 6 – 8 guitarists and/or song writers and/or guitar composers to participate in a Practice Research Challenge about the creative use of guitar tunings. It is quite a fast turn-around so please ensure you read the timetable below to make sure you have the time to participate if selected.

The 21st Century Music Practice Research Centre is collaborating with Dr Jo Collinson Scott (University of the West of Scotland) to run another of our Practice Research Challenges. This one will run in January 2026 and involves practice research about the creative use of guitar tunings. Those chosen to participate in the project will produce a video which will be published by the research centre in conjunction with Research UK’s JISC Octopus.ac format  – as a joint authored, DOI allocated, peer reviewed, practice research output.

Think of an idea or approach for experimenting with tuning (either a strategy that you already use or something that you come up with for this challenge) – it could be for song writing, part-writing / arranging or something less specific like exploring different timbres. You will need to send us a written proposal by 2nd January 2026 (max 200 words plus a one page CV).

If you are selected to participate, you will be asked to:

• Film yourself experimenting with the idea / approach until you come up with something you think is interesting
• Edit together a 10 minute video showing:
  • What your initial idea was
  • How experimenting with it produced new ideas / timbres / articulations / gestures – you may want to show things that didn’t work as well as those that did.
  • What the result was – it doesn’t need to be a finished piece of music but it does need to be a coherent idea that either is a rough version of something or demonstrates the implications you think it has.
  • You can combine commentary or annotations (arrows, circles, subtitles etc) with videos of performance.
  • Phone videos are acceptable. We are not expecting professional-level film-making but please produce the best audio and video quality that you can and please film in landscape rather than portrait format.
• Submit the video before 15th January 2026 – we will let the chosen participants know how to submit the video.
• As soon as possible after that, you will receive a video by another participant (who will receive your video in exchange). Watch it and do the same thing again using that video as the basis for the same process (i.e. exploring what their ideas stimulate you to do).
• Submit that video before 25th January 2026 and watch the video the other participant made based on your video.
• Before 9th February 2026 you will film and edit a 20 minute discussion with that participant using Teams or Zoom:
  • 10 minutes exploring how the two of you interpreted the challenge – where you think your approach came from and how you reacted to the other person’s
  • 10 minutes analysing what happened – how your decisions and approaches (and being stimulated by theirs) shaped the outcome.
• These videos would then be edited together into a 60 minute video and published by the virtual research centre in conjunction with the JISC Octopus.ac format  – as a joint authored, DOI allocated, peer reviewed, practice research output. The 60 minute format will therefore comprise:
  • 10 minute of your first video
  • 10 minutes of their first video
  • 10 minutes of your 2nd video responding to theirs
  • 10 minutes of their 2nd video responding to yours
  • 10 minute discussion of how the two of you interpreted the challenge
  • 10 minute discussion of your joint analysis of the process and outcome

Please send a 200 word summary of your proposed approach / technique plus a one page CV to researchchallenge@c21mp.org. Written submissions and CVs should be in English but, if selected, you can use any language in the videos as long as there are clear English subtitles. Please check automatic translations and transcriptions. AI can be even stupider than we are.