This is because the answer to any conceivable ‘research question’ that might be involved is known in advance.
But in reality even compositional systems are not research in any strong sense. Now, even granting this, it would remain the case that good and bad music can be made from any system – so after all the explications of technique, the compositionally important thing would remain unexplained and untouched. One might argue that at least the construction of compositional systems is research. The development of the pianoforte involved research and influenced music in profound ways, but it was not composing.
Rameau's harmonic theory was research, and it surely influenced his music (and music in general), but the Traité de l'harmonie is not a musical composition. Composing, of course, might on occasion depend on research – how do I make an orchestra sound like a bell? How do I electronically sustain a note from an instrument so that it doesn't sound mechanical? What is the best way to notate microtones or complex rhythms so that they can be accurately played? But none of these is actually the composition of music. There are, by and large, two kinds of composers in academia today – those who labour under the delusion that they are doing a kind of ‘research’, and those who recognise the absurdity of this idea, but who continue to supervise PhD students, make funding applications, and document their activities as if it were true.
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