Program Music Matters Master Class

A few months ago, we sent out a CFP for an international master class for PhD students in music studies. The response was overwhelming, and we are very proud to present the final program! This Master Class takes place on the prelude day to the IASPM international conference A Long Way to The Top: Production and Reception of Music in a Globalized World.

Program Music Matters Master Class

November 5, 2014 – Tilburg University, Erasmus University and IASPM

Location: The Faculty Club, Tilburg University Campus

09:00 DOORS OPEN with coffee and tea
09:30 OPENING of the day

PARALLEL SESSIONS

09:45 – 10:45 SESSION ONE
Theme: Cultural appropriation. Respondent: Barbara Titus (UvA)

PAPER 1: Colombian Music as a connector in African Diaspora
Viola Mueller, Leiden University

PAPER 2: Children’s appropriations of musical styles in the Dutch Hindu Community
Dana van Breukelen, Tilburg University

Theme: Genres and classification. Respondent: Alex van Venrooij (UvA)

PAPER 1: Fuzziness in genre categorization and its effect on market performance
Michele Piazzai, Delft University

PAPER 2: “What kind of genre do you think we are?” Genre theories, genre names and classes within music intermedial ecology.
Gabriele Marino, Torino University

10:45-11:00 COFFEE BREAK

11:00 – 12:00 SESSION TWO
Theme: Knowledge and the senses. Respondent: Tineke Nugteren (TiU)

PAPER 1: Learning with the senses
Jaco van den Dool, Erasmus University Rotterdam

PAPER 2: The body and the beat. Baile funk in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro
Sterre Gilsing, Utrecht University

Theme: Digitization and meaning. Respondent: Koen van Eijck (EUR)

PAPER 1: Digitization and the changing meaning of “artists”
Amber Geurts, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

PAPER 2: Take it or leave it: Creators, copyright and commercial decision-making
Kenneth Barr, Glasgow University

12:00-12:15 COFFEE BREAK

12:15 – 13:15 KEYNOTE LECTURE The Secret of Andre Rieu
Prof. Maaike Meijer (Maastricht University)

13:15- 14:15 LUNCH BREAK

14:15-15:15 SESSION THREE
Theme: Ethnography and identity formation. Respondent: Martin Hoondert (TiU)

PAPER 1: The self-conscious ethnographer
Samuel Murray, Cardiff University

PAPER 2: Pop music memories and their significance for audiences
Simone Driessen, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Theme: Careers and Education. Respondent: Koen van Eijk (EUR)

PAPER 1: Innovation and music in class room education
Marilisa Sarafin, Padua University

PAPER 2: Early-Career Songwriters: managing barriers to entry in the music industry
Rachel Skaggs, Vanderbilt University

15:15-15:30 COFFEE BREAK 

15:30 – 16:30 SESSION FOUR
Theme: Music Heritage and Tourism. Respondent: Hendrik Henrichs (UU)

PAPER 1: DJ Culture, performance and the construction of musical heritage
Kim Ramstedt, Åbo Akademi University

PAPER 2: Music Tourism Motivations
Leonieke Bolderman, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Theme: Genre history. Respondent: Kristin McGee (RUG)

PAPER 1: The construction of authenticity in Czech rap music
Anna Oravcova, Prague University

PAPER 2: Genres in Italian popular music
Jacopo Tomatis, Torino University

16:30 CLOSING REMARKS by Prof. Maaike Meijer (Maastricht University)

16:45 CLOSING of the day

17:00 – 18:00 DRINKS

The pre-conference symposium starts at 20:00 at Worm in Rotterdam.
There is a train connection between Tilburg and Rotterdam which runs frequently. It will take you about an hour to get to Rotterdam from the station at Tilburg University.

Image: http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/keep-calm-because-music-matters/ 

report meeting #3

Today saw the third meeting of the study group!

During this meeting we discussed an article of Leonieke Bolderman (EUR) about music tourism motivation. Titled Have you found what you’re looking for? On music tourism motivation, the article is a presentation of the first fieldwork stage in Leonieke’s project on music tourism. It falls within a larger research project on tourism based on literature, film, and music. For her first fieldwork phase, Leonieke went to study music tourism based on Abba (Stockholm), Wagner (Bayreuth), and U2 (Dublin). She studied musical themed city walks, by means of participant observation and semi-structured interviews. The main question that the article deals with is tourist motivation: why do people participate in tourist activities (in this case city walks) that relate to composers or bands? What does it mean to them to actually be at specific locations that can be associated with these musicians?

The article first describes the state of the art in music tourism research, which primarily focuses on theorizing about feelings of nostalgia or longing for authenticity. However, motivation is a key element that is missing from a lot of tourism studies. The music tourism that is described in this article is, in all three case studies, based on the biographical details of the musicians. Other kinds of music tourism can relate to places referred to in songs, or locations that are represented in musicians’ artwork as album covers and video clips. In the next stage of the research, Leonieke will focus on the representation and imagination of particular locations through music.

After the discussion of the article, we discussed the participation of the study group members at the Music Matters Master Class and international conference A Long Way to the Top: the Production and Reception of Music in a Globalized World – to be held at 5-7 November in Tilburg and Rotterdam.

If you have any interesting conferences, meetings, books or anything you’d like to share with your fellow members of the study group, please e-mail them to Lieke: she’ll put them up on the study group website!

Also, if you have any questions, ideas, concerns for the study group, just e-mail them: l.wijnia@tilburguniversity.edu

The next meeting will take place at the end of September/ early October, for which Lieke will send out an email with possible dates early September.

Study Group Meeting #3

 

The third meeting of our PhD study group will take place on Wednesday June 25, 2014.
From 15:00-17:00 we will be meeting at the Uithof Campus of Utrecht University.

We will be discussing an article submitted by one of the study group participants and discuss the plans for the international music studies master class and conference A Long Way to the Top that takes place in November this year.
After the meeting there is the opportunity to get some drinks together!

If you are a PhD student working on music and you would like to join in, please be in touch at l.wijnia@tilburguniversity.edu and you will receive further information!

 

 

CFP: Music Matters Master Class

Tilburg University, IASPM Benelux and Erasmus University Rotterdam present:

Music Matters Master Class

Wednesday 5 Nov. 2014, Tilburg, The Netherlands

• Are you a PhD student and planning on attending the music studies conference A Long way to the Top on 6 and 7 November 2014?
• Or are you looking for a place to get feedback on a dissertation chapter or article you’ve just written?

Then definitely consider joining one day earlier to take part in the very first Music Matters Master Class. This master class is hosted in Tilburg as a prelude to the conference in Rotterdam (just 45 min. by train). Also if you can’t make the conference, but would like to discuss your work in an inspiring setting: continue reading!

We aim to get together a group of PhD students who conduct research on music and meaning making in the broadest sense. Think of topics such as music in relation to identity formation, rituals, tourism, festivals, and urban and social development: but the scope of the master class is certainly not limited to these topics. We invite proposals that deal with both popular and classical music. We will be asking at least two conference speakers to host the master class.

In response to this CFP, please send us a proposal of about 500 words stating what your research is about and describe the particular topic and article or dissertation chapter you would like to discuss during the master class. If your proposal is accepted, you will be asked to send us this text and we will distribute it amongst the participants. The number of selected participants will be limited, as we will ask you to come prepared and have read all the submitted texts. During the master class all participants will be giving short (10-15 min.) presentations on their texts, followed by feedback of the professors and discussion with the entire group. With this master class we hope to offer an engaging and productive opportunity to discuss your work amongst scholars with different expertise than you might be used to in your own institutional environment. We aim to achieve new and refreshing insights and thought-provoking discussions!

If you want to participate in this master class, please send us before June 1^st, 2014:

• A short statement of motivation including a description of your research project and specification of what you propose to discuss during the master class and whether this is an article or dissertation chapter (max. 500 words)
• A short biography, including your current institutional affiliation and academic background

Please e-mail your proposal to Lieke Wijnia (TiU): l.wijnia@tilburguniversity.edu
Also if you have any questions, do not hesitate to get in touch!

We will let you know by August 1^st, 2014 whether you can take part in the master class. By that time we will also request your proposed text: you don’t need to send the complete text in at this stage. There is no fee for the master class. Lunch and drinks afterwards will be provided for the master class participants.

 

 

Top image: Shutterstock

report meeting #2

Last Friday saw the second meeting of the study group!

During this meeting we discussed an article submitted by Melle Kromhout, titled “How much noise is necessary?”  It deals with the topic of ‘dithering,’ a process applied in digital audio. In short, it is the addition of noise to digital sound in order to eliminate so-called quantization errors. As part of his PhD-project on the position and importance of noise in recorded music, dithering drew his interest because it provides a striking example of a process in which noise is something beneficial. The article was written for an ASCA Workshop in April and functions as a departure point for one of his dissertation chapters. Furthermore Melle will also present on this topic during a conference in Berkeley at the end of April.

The major themes we discussed concerned the theoretical level of the article in relation to practice or the position of the listener in all this; the relation between the use of philosophical notions and the technical history of dithering; and the main aim of the paper – rewriting the history of the notion of noise, or positioning the use of noise in a larger discussion like those concerning reaching a perfect state for sound.

Furthermore, we discussed organizing an expertmeeting. This will most likely take place at the end of 2014 and we will be approaching possible speakers soon! We’ll keep you posted!

If you have any interesting conferences, meetings, books or anything you’d like to share with your fellow members of the study group, please e-mail them to Lieke: she’ll put them up on the study group website! Also, if you have any questions, ideas, concerns for the study group, just e-mail them: l.wijnia@tilburguniversity.edu

The next meeting will take place at half May, for which an email will be sent out with possible dates around half April.

Image: http://www.uu.nl: the interior of Drift 25, where the study group meetings take place.

Facilitated by:

We are very happy to receive support from the Research School for Media Studies (RMeS)!

Study Group Meeting #2

Our next meeting will take place on March 7, from 13.00-15.00, in Utrecht.

If you want to join – please let us know!

Public Lecture: Julia Kursell

The Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis (NICA) presents a public lecture by:

Julia Kursell (UvA)

Motor Media: On Aural Feedback in the History of Musical Instrument Playing

Julia Kursell is professor of musicology at the University of Amsterdam. Before coming to Amsterdam, she worked as a research fellow at Bauhaus University in Weimar and at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. Her research interests include the history of the physiology and psychology of hearing, as well as the relation between music, media and technology in Western composition after 1945. She has published widely in these areas in journals such as Configurations, Greyroom, and OASE. Most recently, the volume Music, Sound, and the Laboratory, co-edited with Alexandra E. Hui and Myles W. Jackson, has come out with Chicago University Press.

This lecture is organized byCarolyn Birdsall (UvA), Myles Jackson (NYU), Mara Mills (NYU) and Viktoria Tkaczyk (University of Amsterdam)

Date: Monday 13 January 2014
Time: 15:00-17:00
Location: Doelenzaal, University Library, Singel 425, Amsterdam
The lecture is free and open to the public. No registration is required.

conference cultural musicology

On January 24 & 25, 2014, a conference on Cultural Musicology will be held in Amsterdam.

Our primary concern has something in common with Chase’s problem that musicology was limited to the ‘(art) music of the west’ and ethnomusicology was confined to the ‘music of the rest’. Musicology must be the general term, and as Charles Seeger contended, should be able to deal with any and all manifestations of music. And, very much in the tradition of the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis, cultural musicology entails the cultural analysis of music. But beyond that, we are also profoundly interested in the musical analysis of culture, i.e. the ways in which music is an auricle on culture. And this bears with it yet another implication, in which music is a knowledge system, a way of understanding not only culture, but our relation to the world around us. We call this, in line with Jaap Kunst and Rafael de Menezes Bastos, musico-logica. Musico-logicas are intimately connected to musicologies, and though the musics of different part of the world have been studied extensively, the musicologies have remained under-exposed. For this conference we have invited scholars whose work has struck us as particularly relevant in the context of the above sketch of cultural musicology.

For more information and registration, see the conference website!

Masterclass Simone Mahrenholz

On January 23, 2014, a masterclass will be given by Professor Simone Mahrenholz (University of Manitoba).

This master class will address a number questions including the following: How is it possible that abstract musical sounds can convey a certain ‘content’ and ‘knowledge’? What does it mean for musical sounds to be a “sign” or part of a “symbol-system” and thus to refer to something outside itself? What distinguishes music from language and what do they have in common? How can one analyze the “logics” of musical signs or symbols, and what do they ‘symbolize’? What role do emotions play in music as well as our bodily perceptions? And what concept of “knowledge” or “cognition” must we apply in order to encompass the manifold simultaneous forms in which music stimulates our intellectual, emotional as well as sensual responsiveness?

See for more information and registration the website of the Netherlands Institute of Cultural Analysis.