The EAM librarian

Two online journals

2012-01-21T10:17:00.000+01:00

Dancecult : journal of electronic dance music culture. "Dancecult is a peer-reviewed, open-access e-journal for the study of electronic dance music culture (EDMC)."

Jems : journal of experimental music studies. "Jems is an online peer-reviewed journal devoted to experimental, systems, minimal, post-minimal, ‘new’ tonal and postmodern music." The same web site also hosts The experimental music catalogue and its article archive.

I've updated the meta-bibliography. All links to Music & Dance Reference should now work.

EAM and 20th century modernism

2012-01-20T11:45:00.000+01:00

Reading Paul Griffiths' Modern music and after (3. ed.), I was struck by the author's cursory treatment of EAM, especially since he himself writes that

"[...] electronic music was soon set on a path apart from other music, to become a sphere (too often regarded as a secondary sphere) with its own institutions and proponents." (p. 18, emphasis mine)

Griffiths doesn't reveal the identity of those who regard EAM as a "secondary sphere" (nor what he means by "secondary"), but he certainly seems to belong to them, since he mentions almost no composers that have devoted themselves to EAM.

From the book's index I've estimated that, of the 10-11 most mentioned composers, Stockhausen receives by far the most attention, followed by Boulez, Cage and Nono, and then Berio, Messiaen, Ligeti, Stravinsky, Babbitt, Kagel and Lachenmann. Surprisingly, Xenakis is not among these 11, and ranks below e.g. Elliott Carter, Maxwell Davies, Ferneyhough, Henze, Kurtág, Reich, and Scelsi.

The composers Griffiths discusses in connexion with EAM are almost the same as the ones listed above. Of those that's mentioned more than twice, Stockhausen again receives the most attention, followed by Nono, Berio, Cage, Babbitt, Boulez, Chowning and Schaeffer. These composers were obviously important for the development of EAM, but many of them wrote mainly instrumental and vocal music.

Many of the other EAM composers discussed in the book are associated with either IRCAM or computer music, such as Jonathan Harvey, Jean-Claude Risset and Charles Dodge. Xenakis' EAM isn't mentioned, and also left out are the entire French/Canadian acousmatic and soundscape traditions, e.g. Bayle, Dhomont, Ferrari, Parmegiani, Radigue, Schafer, Smalley, Truax, and Westerkamp.

Of course, Modern music and after is an introductory text, and numerous composers have to be excluded (for another perspective on this, see James Primosch's blog post Whose “Modern Music” and whose “After”?). I still think that Griffiths' text is a good introduction to the main trends in 20th century modernism, and a glance through Music in the late twentieth century, the fifth volume of Richard Taruskin's Oxford history of Western music, suggests that it too suffers from the same distorted view of EAM.

But privileging EAM that emanates from serial and computer music is an unfortunate bias that carries with it notions of purity, control and academicism. It's no coincidence that David Metzer chooses Stockhausen's Gesang der Jünglinge and Harvey's Mortuos plango, vivos voco as his prime examples of purity in Musical modernism at the turn of the twenty-first century.

Not all computer music sucks, and there is certainly boring and academic-sounding acousmatic EAM, but that's no reason for musicologists to neglect the latter.

EAM and music perception

2012-01-20T09:06:00.000+01:00

There is an interesting discussion in the online journal Empirical musicology review (EMR) concerning the use of electroacoustic music (EAM) for the study of music perception. In "Time series analysis as a method to examine acoustical influences on real-time perception of music" (EMR, vol. 5, no. 4 (October, 2010)), Roger T. Dean and Freya Bailes use an extract from Trevor Wishart's Red bird to analyse correlations between the acoustic properties intensity and spectral flatness, and listener arousal (perceptions of change) and valence (expressed affect). They argue that

"[p]revious studies of listeners’ real-time perceptions of affect in music have attempted to map response through time to acoustic properties of the piece [...]. Missing are substantial attempts to assess which acoustic properties also drive listeners’ perceptions of the structure of the same music. Structure in this instance need not be a music-theoretic analysis of large-scale form [...], but refers to the low-level assessment by a listener of change and continuity in the music. [... M]usical forms that do not rely on hierarchical structures such as tonality or meter might exhibit quite a close relationship between acoustic properties of the work, listener perceptions of structure (change in sound), and listener perceptions of affect. EAM is one such form, and the subject of the current paper."

Dean and Bailes find that

"intensity influences perceptions of change and expressed arousal substantially. Spectral flatness influences valence, while animate sounds influence the valence response and its variance."

Marcus T. Pearce, in "Time-series analysis of Music: Perceptual and Information Dynamics" (EMR, vol. 6, no. 2 (April, 2011)), comments that Dean and Bailes

"[...] give two reasons for using EAM in their study: first, to demonstrate that their methods generalise beyond Western tonal music which is more often used in empirical work on music perception; and second, Red Bird provides an opportunity to test their methods on idiosyncratic temporally-localised timbral features in addition to the continuous features which generalise to other musical genres (see, e.g., Dean, Bailes & Schubert, 2011). Interestingly, their timbre feature of choice is spectral flatness, which they view as a more global indicator of timbre than spectral centroid, which is more commonly used in research on music perception (though this is not true of research on audio signal processing and music information retrieval where spectral flatness is one of the standard descriptors used in the MPEG 7 standard)."

Spectral flatness is the geometric mean of the power spectrum divided by the arithmetic mean. Noisy spectra have high flatness, peaky spectra low flatness. Spectral flatness is also related to the information content of the sound. The spectral centroid, i.e. the mean, barycenter or "mass center" of a spectrum, is correlated with brightness. Both flatness and centroid are included in the MPEG 7 standard. For descriptions of these and other timbre measures, see Geoffroy Peeters, A large set of audio features for sound description, 2004.

In addition, Pearce remarks that

"Dean and Bailes also argue that EAM can be algorithmically generated in such a way that the acoustic and algorithmic parameters of interest are systematically varied in creating stimuli for research on music perception. In other work, for example, Dean et al. (2011) extend their approach to the effects of intensity on arousal in two pieces written by Roger Dean, one of which is composed in the minimalist style. We might legitimately ask what advantage such algorithmically generated music has over the stimuli often constructed artificially to create experimental conditions in empirical research on music perception. The most obvious advantage is that the results gain in ecological validity from using stimuli created by composers, using stylistically legitimate methods, with an artistic purpose. These results should generalise to the experience of similar music outside the laboratory, while results obtained with artificially created or altered musical stimuli are not guaranteed to do so. The advantage of computer-generated music over other musical styles is that it can be produced so as to conserve experimental control."

Dean and Bailes respond to Pearce in another paper, "Modelling perception of structure and affect in music: spectral centroid and Wishart’s Red Bird" (EMR, vol. 6, no. 2 (April, 2011)) where they analyse the Red Bird extract using spectral centroid and find that

"[...] it is fairly clear that spectral centroid and spectral flatness bear a quite distant relationship to atomic perceptual processes, and it is still unclear how they may influence cognition. But acoustic intensity, on the other hand, is an immediate determinant of an important perceptual response, loudness, and this relationship is much better understood. Again, most studies use short tones, often synthetic, but it is clear that even with longer musical extracts, intensity is a close determinant of continuously perceived loudness."

Sound art and electronic music courses at Hola folkhögskola 2012

2011-12-22T08:59:00.000+01:00

A distance learning course in sound art will be held during the first semester 2012 at Hola folkhögskola, close to Kramfors in Northern Sweden. Since the course info is in Swedish, I guess the course will be taught in Swedish, too. A rudimentary English translation of the course description:

The course is for artists and other interested who want to refine their ways of expressing themselves in sound. It is a course for those who want to broaden their styles with creative work with sound in sound art projects. The course includes seminars, projects under supervision, listening skills and analysis of sound in film, music, radio and web. Literature studies.

The application deadline is January 15, 2012.

Hola folkhögskola also has a distance learning course in electronic music with Pd for beginners, application deadline February 15, 2012, and a one-year course in Music production and audio engineering starting the second semester 2012. One can choose electronic music and sound design as a specialisation. Application deadline April 15, 2012.

Some sound art papers

2011-12-12T07:56:00.001+01:00

The papers from the Sound Art Theories Symposium 2011 papers are now available. For those interested in digital archiving, David Grubbs' paper "'Remove the Records from Texas': Parsing Online Archives" discusses two "very different kinds of online archives", UbuWeb and DRAM (the acronym stands for Database of Recorded American Music, but the archive holds works from other countries as well).

Calls for 2012

2011-12-03T18:25:00.001+01:00

Please note that all calls etc. for 2012 will be published here, and not in separate posts.

New books and CDs in EMS' library

2011-12-01T12:02:00.001+01:00

New books

Aare, Anders: Ljuddesign för scenen
Acoustic environments in change, Five village soundscapes
Darmstädter Beiträge zur Neuen Musik 1959
Diederichsen, Diedrich & Ruhm, Constanze (ed.): Immediacy and non-simultaneity : utopia of sound
Hellström, Björn: Noise design : architectural modeling and the aesthetics of urban acoustic space
Helmholtz, Hermann von: On the sensations of tone as a physiological basis for the theory of music
Kirn, Peter (ed.): The evolution of electronic dance music
Manzo, V. J.: Max/MSP/Jitter for music : a practical guide to developing interactive music systems for education and more
Mossberg, Frans (ed.): Buller i blåsväder
Mossberg, Frans (ed.): Ljudmiljö, hälsa och stadsbyggnad
Numminen, M. A.: Till Helsingfors
O'Konor, Louise: Viking Eggeling 1880-1925 : modernist och filmpionjär : hans liv och verk
Re-tooling residences : a closer look at the mobility of art professionals
Salter, Chris: Entangled : technology and the transformation of performance
Shryane, Jennifer: Blixa Bargeld and Einstürzende Neubauten : German experimenal music : evading do-re-mi
Tonsättare i Sverige 1981
Young, Gayle: The sackbut blues : Hugh Le Caine : pioneer in electronic music
Zetterblom, Margareta: Textile sound design
Åman, Jan & Birnbaum, Daniel (ed.): De ou par Marcel Duchamp par Ulf Linde

New CDs

5 composers
5 composers : second coming
5 composers : 3rd hearing
Academic noise
Archipel électronique. Vol. 1
Ars Ludi: Percussione e oltre
Bilbao Kolektibo Elektronikoa: BIKE 3.0
Bits and pieces
Broberg, Jonas & Karlsson, Erik Mikael: Two composers
Cache 2004
Cache 2007
Cache 2008
Cache 2009
Electronic music from Catalonia 2010
Electronic music. Vol. IV, Música viva competition : prize winners 2007 - 2008 - 2009
Elektrofoni : new electroacoustic music from Sweden
Gros: Homes
Johansson, Pär: The empty palace
Kubisch, Christina: Licht Himmel : Gasometer Oberhausen
Leak: Redemption
Leak: The old teahouse
Liljekvist, Jan: The strange and incredible world of Dr Jayne Insane and the Gutbucket Philharmonicks
Lindström, Mats & Runolf, Sören: A wonder of beauty and efficiency
Lundsten, Ralph: Nordic nature symphony no. 3 : ”A midwinter saga”
México electroacústico 1960-2007
Pauk: Insekt
Phonorama
Riis, Jakob: No Denmark
Rylander, Henrik: Formation
Sigal, Rodrigo: Space within
Six winners : the Stockholm Electronic Arts Award
Winner takes all

(The full catalogue can be found here: http://www.elektronmusikstudion.se/library-and-archives/.)

EMS12 call for papers

2011-11-26T16:45:00.001+01:00

Next year's Electronic Music Studies Conference, EMS12, will take place in Stockholm on June 11-15 2012. It is co-organised by EMS (Elektronmusikstudion) and KMH (The Royal College of Music). Keynote speaker is Lars-Gunnar Bodin and the theme of the conference is Meaning and meaningfulness in electroacoustic music.

Deadline for submission of papers: ~~Tuesday 17 January 2012, 09.00 CET (GMT+1)~~
Extended to Monday 30 January 2012, 12.00 CET (GMT+1)

New CDs in EMS library

2011-11-03T10:43:00.000+01:00

Some of these CDs are a gift from Tamas Ungvary. These CDs are listed separately below. Thanks, Tamas!

New CDs

BBC radiophonic music
BBC radiophonic workshop : a retrospective
Cage, John: Bird Cage
Estonian music now 2011 : exploratory music from Estonia
Futurism & dada reviewed
Musica futurista : the art of noises : music & words from the italian futurist movement 1909-1935
Splitting bits, closing loops : sound on sound
The Wire Tapper 25
The Wire Tapper 26
The Wire Tapper 27

CDs from Tamas Ungvary

Ars Ludi: Percussione e oltre
Bianchini, Laura: Immobile e doppio
Computer music @ CCRMA. Volume one
ICMC 1992
ICMC 1994
Interpreting the soundscape
IRCAM : les années 90
Lupone, Michelangelo: In un grattacielo
Sala, Oskar: My fascinating instrument : Mixturtrautonium
Viñao, Alejandro: Son entero, Triple concerto
Voigtländer, Lothar: Elektro-akustische kompositionen

New books and CDs in EMS' library

2011-10-30T12:42:00.001+01:00

A few of the books below were a gift from Johan Boberg. Thanks, Johan!

New books

Adams, John Luther: The place where you go to listen : in search of an ecology of music
Adams, Randy ; Arisona, Stefan Müller & Gibson, Steve (ed.): Transdisciplinary digital art
Alfredsson, Johan: "Tro mig på min ort" : oöversättligheten som tematiskt komplex i Bengt Emil Johnsons poesi 1973-1982
Allen, Greg: Klaus Schulze : electronic music legend
Appleton, Jon H. & Perera, Ronald C. (ed.): The development and practice of electronic music
Austin, Larry & Kahn, Douglas: Source : music of the avant-garde, 1966-1973
Beins, Burkhard et al.: Echtzeitmusik Berlin : Selbstbestimmung einer Szene = Self-defining a scene
Bohman, Stefan ; Lundberg, Dan & Ternhag, Gunnar (ed.): Musikinstrument berättar : instrumentforskning idag
Cádiz, Rodrigo: Computer music control by fuzzy logic : theory and applications
Dzuverovic, Lina & Neset, Anne Hilde (ed.): Her noise
Edwards, Folke (ed.): Futuristisk teater & film
Ehlin, Fredrik (ed.): Lina Selander : the space of memory
Erlmann, Veit: Reason and resonance : a history of modern aurality
Focke, Anne (ed.): Trimpin : contraptions for art and sound
Forrest, Peter: The A-Z of analogue synthesisers. A-M
Forrest, Peter: The A-Z of analogue synthesisers. N-Z
Gann, Kyle: No such thing as silence : John Cage's 4'33
Garcia-Valenzuela, Pablo: Aesthetic in temporal forces and electroacoustic composition
Geisler, Ursula & Rosengren, Henrik (ed.): "Min tid ska komma" : Gustav Mahler i tvärvetenskaplig belysning
Giannoulakis, Stelios: Relationships: fusion and dialectic : portfolio of electroacoustic compositions
Goodale, Greg: Sonic persuasion : reading sound in the recorded age / Greg Goodale
Gorges, Peter & Sasso, Len: The Wizoo pro guide to Nord Modular
Griffiths, Paul: Modern music : a concise history
Gustafson, Klas: Levande musik i hela landet : Rikskonserter från början till slut
Henderson, Dave: Journey to a plugged in state of mind : electronic music : a century of exploration and exploitation
Henry, Otto W .: A preliminary checklist: books and articles on electronic music
Hermele, Vanja: I väntan på vadå? : Teaterförbundets guide till jämställdhet
Hermele, Vanja: Konsten - så funkar det (inte)
Honing, Henkjan: Musical cognition : a science of listening
Iannis Xenakis (Musik-Konzepte 54/55)
Izhaki, Roey: Mixing audio : concepts, practices and tools
Jansma, Linda Seiffarth, Carsten (ed.): Seeing sound : Gordon Monahan : sound art, performance and music 1978-2011
Karkoschka, Erhard: Das Schriftbild der Neuen Musik
Kelly, Caleb (ed.): Sound
Kommittén för jämställdhet inom scenkonstområdet: Plats på scen : betänkande
Matossian, Nouritza: Xenakis
Nielsén, Tobias & Nilsson, Sven: Kultursverige 2040 : vad vi vet, vad vi tror, vad vi vill
Nordwall, Ove (ed.): Från Mahler till Ligeti : en antologi om vår tids musik
Oliveros, Pauline: Sounding the margins : collected writings 1992-2009
Pearson, Matt: Generative art : a practical guide using processing
Qian, Jinyu: Virtual sound localization with modified spectral cues
Rainer, Cosima et al. (ed.): See this sound : Versprechungen von Bild und Ton = Promises of sound and vision
Rikskonserter i siffror
Russolo, Luigi : The art of noises
Sauer, Theresa: Notations 21
Selander, Lina ; Termaenius, Johan & Vogel, Felix: Around the cave of the double tombs
Sigal, Rodrigo: Compositional strategies in electroacoustic music : generating materials and creating an effective musical language in electroacoustic music
Sounding code : Supercollider symposium 2010, 18-26/09/2010
Sundin, Paulina: Re-inventing harmony in electroacoustic music : a commentary on my recent music
Sinnreich, Aram: Mashed up : music, technology, and the rise of configurable culture
Stolpmann, Bjoern: Beats and bytes : die Enstehung von Digitallabel für elektronische Musik
Ungeheuer, Elena (ed.): Handbuch der Musik im 20. Jahrhundert. Bd 5, Elektroakustische Musik
Varga, Bálint Andrés: Conversations with Iannis Xenakis
Wilson, Scott; Cottle, David & Collins, Nick (ed.): The SuperCollider book
Zölzer, Udo (ed.): DAFX : digital audio effects
Österberg, Eva: Tystnader och tider : samtal med historien

New papers/articles

Cowley, Julian: The Swedish sound art : don't call it sound art if the term shocks you
Delalande, François: Music analysis and reception behaviours: Sommeil by Pierre Henry
Eriksson, Tor: Leo Nilsson
Kendale-Green, Bruce: Rune Lindblad : the pioneer of Swedish electronic music. Part 1, The concrete music from 1953 to 1972
Orrghen, Anna & Bodin, Lars-Gunnar: Lars-Gunnar Bodin : en intervju : 5 september 2007
Orrghen, Anna & Morthenson, Jan W.: Jan W. Morthenson : en intervju : 17 augusti 2007
Orrghen, Anna & Sundqvist, Göran: Göran Sundqvist : en intervju : 31 augusti 2007
Wiggen, Knut: Elektronmusikens utveckling och dess ställning i Sverige

New scores

Stockhausen, Karlheinz: Kontakte : für elektronische Klänge, Klavier und Schlagzeug
Stockhausen, Karlheinz: Studie II : elektronische Musik : 1954

New CDs

Computer music journal : sound and video anthology. Volume 33, 2009
Computer music journal : sound and video anthology. Volume 34, 2010
Isolrubin BK [Lustmord]: Crash Injury Trauma
Lustmord: Other dub
Lustmord: Other
Lustmord: Songs of Gods and Demons

Even more calls

2011-10-15T18:10:00.000+02:00

This is a list of conference calls for 2012. Please note that, though I only list deadlines for paper submissions, many of these conferences also accept music and performances.

DMRN+6. Digital Music Research Network One-day Workshop 2011, 20 December 2011, Arts One Lecture Theatre, Queen Mary University of London. Deadline for abstracts: ~~18 Nov 2011~~

Inference Journal call for papers: Noise Please (Issue 3). Deadline for abstracts: ~~December 16th 2011~~

SC2012. SuperCollider Symposium, April 12th–19th 2012, London. Deadline for concert/talk/club/installation/workshop/other submissions extended to ~~30TH OCTOBER~~

IFIMPaC 2012. The International Festival for Innovations in Music Production and Composition takes place at Leeds College of Music from Thursday 26th to Friday 27th April 2012. The deadline for the submission of proposals of papers and music is 20th February 2012.

ECLAP 2012. ECLAP Conference on Information Technologies for Performing Arts, Media Access and Entertainment, 7-9 May 2012, Florence, Italy. Deadline for submission of papers: ~~22, December 2011~~

NIME 2012. The 12th International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME), 21-23 May 2012, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Deadline for paper/performance/installation/workshop submission: 31 January 2012

Symposion on Xenakis’ electroacoustic music, 23-25 may 2012, Université Paris 8, E.A. 1572. Esthétique, musicologie, danse et création musicale in collaboration with Cdmc, Grm, Cix, Ircam, Motus. Deadline for proposals of papers: ~~1th of January 2012~~

EMS 12. The 12th Electronic Music Studies Conference will take place in Stockholm on June 11-15 2012. Deadline for submission of papers: ~~Tuesday 17 January 2012, 09.00 CET (GMT+1)~~
Extended to Monday 30 January 2012, 12.00 CET (GMT+1)

ICAD 2012. The 18th International Conference on Auditory Display will be held June 18-22, 2012, at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia. The deadline for submission of papers and posters will be on or around February 3, 2012

CMMR 2012. Music and Emotions, 9th International Symposium on Computer Music Modeling and Retrieval, 19-22 June 2012, Queen Mary University of London. Paper/demo/panel/music submission deadline: ~~18th January 2012~~
Extended to 1st February 2012

MuSA 2012. Third International Symposium on Music/Sonic Art: Practices and Theories, Karlsruhe (IMWI), 7-8 July, 2012. Deadline for receipt of abstracts: 15 April

GECCO 2012. Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference, Digital Entertainment and Arts track, July 7-11, 2012, Philadelphia, USA. Deadline for submission of papers: January 27th, 2012 (further info: http://ls11-www.cs.tu-dortmund.de/staff/preuss/deta/call)

SMC 2012. 9th Sound and Music Computing Conference, 12-14th July 2012, Aalborg University, Copenhagen. Deadline for paper submissions: Monday 2 April, 2012

ICMC 2012. The 38th International Computer Music Conference will be held in Ljubljana, Slovenia on 9-15 September 2012. Deadline for submission of papers is: 15th February 2012

DAFx-12. The 15th International Conference on Digital Audio Effects will take place at The University of York, UK, between 17th and 21st September, 2012. Full-Paper Submission Deadline: Friday 23rd March 2012

ISMIR 2012. The 13th International Society for Music Information Retrieval Conference, October 8th-12th, 2012, Porto, Portugal. Deadlines: http://ismir2012.ismir.net/about/important-dates

re-new / IMAC 2012. Interactive Media Arts Conference takes place in, Copenhagen, Denmark on November 19-24 2012. Deadline for paper submission: March 1, 2012

More calls, conferences and some other stuff

2011-07-22T11:38:00.005+02:00

Maryanne Amacher online archive: http://maryanneamacher.org/

An online open source database of city sounds and soundmaps from around the world using online found sounds and field recordings: http://soundcities.com/

A nice collection of sound art links: http://www.onelonelypixel.org/soundart.html

Conferences

KISS2011. Kyma International Sound Symposium, 15-18 September 2011, Porto, Portugal

TCMP2011. Tracking the Creative Process in Music, September 29th – October 1st 2011, Maison Européenne des Sciences de l’Homme et de la Société, Lille

First international Csound Conference. September 30 to October 2 2011, HMTM (Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien), Hannover

Sound Art Theories Symposium 2011, November 5-6, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Deadline for paper submissions: ~~August 1, 2011~~

Symposion on Xenakis’ electroacoustic music, 23-25 may 2012, Université Paris 8, E.A. 1572. Esthétique, musicologie, danse et création musicale in collaboration with Cdmc, Grm, Cix, Ircam, Motus. Deadline for proposals of papers: 1th of January 2012

IRCAM music research residency 2012-13. Application deadline: ~~October 14, 2011 (Midnight Paris Time)~~

For more conferences, see Some conference calls for 2011.

R.I.P. Max Mathews

2011-04-22T06:42:00.001+02:00

Synthopia reports that computer music resarcher Max Mathews (1926-2011) died yesterday, April 21. Mathews was the originator of MUSIC I-V, the predecessors of the Csound/Cmix/Cmusic family. The first computer synthesised music was generated by Mathews in 1957, using MUSIC I on an IBM 704 mainframe.

New books in EMS' library

2011-04-08T10:57:00.000+02:00

We have received a gift of 58 books (and some cd:s that I haven't catalogued yet) from EMS veteran and PDP-15 hybrid synthesiser whiz Tamas Ungvary. These books are listed separately below. Thanks, Tamas!

New books

Priest, Gail (ed.): Experimental music : audio explorations in Australia
Perloff, Marjorie & Dworkin, Craig: The sound of poetry, the poetry of sound
Boulanger, Richard & Lazzarini, Victor: The audio programming book
Cipriani, Alessandro & Giri, Maurizio: Electronic music and sound design : theory and practice with Max/MSP. Vol. 1
Farnell, Andy: Designing sound
Daniels, Dieter & Naumann, Sandra (ed.): See this sound : audiovisuology 2 : essays : histories and theories of audiovisual media and art
Erlandsson, Thomas: Ljudinstallationer i Sveriges utemiljö : examensarbete i landskapsarkitektur
Fylkingen: Fylkingen 1933-1959 : utgiven med anledning av kammarmusikföreningen Fylkingens tjugofemårsjubileum
Leitner, Bernhard: Ton-Raum TU Berlin
Johnsson, Bo: Analoga kretsar. A, Faktabok
Johnsson, Bo: Grundläggande elektronik : elektronik 2000. Faktabok
Molin, Bengt: Analog elektronik
Karlsson, David: En kulturutredning : pengar, konst och politik
Peterson, Lars: Det kulturella kapitalet : kritik av kultursponsringen
Rånlund, Sven ; Österling, Fredrik & Östersjö, Stefan (Horisont): Handlingsplan för den nutida konstmusiken
Stålhammar, Maria & Wiklander, Nils: Lyssna! : en festivalrapport
The Swedish dance history
Wiggen, Knut: Att spela piano
The sound projector 16-19

Books from Tamas Ungvary

Dhomont, Francis (ed.): L'espace du son
INA-GRM: Le traité des objets musicaux 10 ans après (Cahiers recherche/musique 2)
INA-GRM: Synthétiseur ordinateur (Cahiers recherche/musique 3)
Ruschkowski, André: Soundscapes : elektronische Klangerzeugung und Musik
Beauchamp, James W. & Von Foerster, Heinz: Music by computers
Howe, Hubert S.: Electronic music synthesis
The arts & technology : a symposium, April 9-12, 1986, at Connecticut College
The arts & technology II : a symposium, February 2-5, 1989, Connecticut College
Proceedings : the fourth biennial Arts & Technology Symposium, March 4-7, 1993, Connecticut College, New London, Connecticut
Strawn, John (ed.): Music and digital technology : the proceedings of the AES 5th international conference, [Los Angeles, California, 1987, May 1-3]
Leopoldseder, Hannes (ed.): Der Prix ars electronica [1994] : internationales Kompendium der Computerkünste = international compendium of the computer arts
Leopoldseder, Hannes & Schöpf, Christine (ed.): Der Prix ars electronica 95 : internationales Kompendium der Computerkünste = international compendium of the computer arts
Austin, Larry & Clarke, Thomas (ed.): Proceedings : 1981 International Computer Music Conference November 5-8 : presented by the School of Music and the Union Program Council North Texas State University, Denton, Texas USA
International Computer Music Conference 1984 = Conference internationale d’informatique musicale, 19-23 octobre, Paris, France
Berg, Paul (ed.): Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference, Royal Conservatory, The Hague, Netherlands, October 20-24, 1986
Beauchamp, James (ed.): Proceedings of the 1987 International Computer Music Conference : University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois USA, August 23-26, 1987
Lischka, Christoph & Fritsch, Johannes (ed.): Proceedings of the 14th International Computer Music Conference, Cologne, September 20-25, 1988
Wells, Thomas & Butler, David (ed.): Proceedings : 1989 International Computer Music Conference, November 2-5, the Ohio State University, Columbus
Arnold, Stephen & Hair, Graham (ed.): Proceedings : ICMC, Glasgow 1990
Alphonce, Bo & Pennycook, Bruce (ed.): Proceedings : ICMC, International Computer Music Conference, Montreal 1991
Strange, Allen (ed.): Proceedings : International Computer Music Conference, San José, California, October 14-18, 1992
Ohteru, Sadamu (ed.): Proceedings of the 1993 International Computer Music Conference, September 10-15, 1993, International Computer Music Association and Waseda University
Siegel, Wayne & Brandorff, Steffen (ed.) : Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference 1994 : [the human touch]
Proceedings : International Computer Music Conference : digital playgrounds : September 3-7, 1995
Ayers, Lydia & Horner, Andrew (ed.): Proceedings of the 1996 International Computer Music Conference, August 19-24, 1996
Rikakis, Thanassis & Cook, Perry R. (ed.): Proceedings : International Computer Music Conference 1997 : Thessaloniki, Hellas, 25-30 September, 1997
ICMC99 : 1999 International Computer Music Conference, Beijing, China : program
Tarkka, Minna (ed.): ISEA' 94 Catalogue
Actes : 6e Symposium des arts électroniques, septembre 1995 = Proceedings : 6th International Symposium on Electronic Art, September 1995 : ISEA 95, Montréal
Friberg, Anders ; Iwarsson, Jenny ; Jansson, Erik & Sundberg, Johan (ed.): SMAC 93 : proceedings of the Stockholm Music Acoustics Conference July 28-August 1, 1993
Workshop on artificial intelligence and music, Tuesday, August 7, 1990 : abstracts : ECAI - European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Stockholm, Sweden, August 6-10, 1990
DeLio, Thomas (ed.): Contiguous lines : issues and ideas in the music of the '60's and '70's
Dibelius, Ulrich: Moderne Musik. [1], 1945-1965 : Voraussetzungen, Verlauf, Material
Kolleritsch, Otto: Zur Neuen Einfachheit in der Musik
Morthenson, Jan W.: Nonfigurative Musik
Neuland : Ansätze zur Musik der Gegenwart : Jahrbuch. Band 1
Neuland : Ansätze zur Musik der Gegenwart : Jahrbuch. Band 3
Neuland : Ansätze zur Musik der Gegenwart : Jahrbuch. Band 4
Stürzbecher, Ursula: Werkstattgespräche mit Komponisten
Zimmerschied, Dieter (ed.): Perspektiven neuer Musik : Material und didaktische Information
Kolisch, Rudolf & Türcke, Berthold: Zur Theorie der Aufführung : ein Gespräch mit Berthold Türcke (Musik-Konzepte 29/30)
Evangelisti, Franco: Franco Evangelisti (Musik-Konzepte 43/44)
Kagel, Mauricio: Worte über Musik : Gespräche, Aufsätze, Reden, Hörspiele
Gottfried Michael Koenig (Musik-Konzepte 66)
Sabbe, Herman: György Ligeti : Studien zur kompositorischen Phänomenologie (Musik-Konzepte 53)
Sabbe, Herman: Karlheinz Stockhausen : ... wie die Zeit verging ... (Musik-Konzepte 19)
Garland, Peter (ed.): Soundings 13 : the music of James Tenney
Der Komponist Isang Yun
Erickson, Robert: Sound structure in music
Gabrielsson, Alf: Action and perception in rhythm and music : papers given at a symposium in the Third International Conference on Event Perception and Action [Uppsala, 1985]
Lerdahl, Fred & Jackendoff, Ray S.: A generative theory of tonal music
Meyer, Leonard B.: Emotion and meaning in music
Pressing, Jeff: Synthesizer performance
Kosko, Bart: Fuzzy thinking : the new science of fuzzy logic
Kreuzer, Franz: Gödel-Satz, Möbius-Schleife, Computer-Ich : Franz Kreuzer im Gespräch mit Paul Watzlawick, Werner Schimanovich, Eckehart Köhler, Paul Badura-Skoda und Werner Leinfellner
Richards, Whitman (ed.): Natural computation
Risset, Jean-Claude: An introductory catalogue of computer synthesized sounds
Gravesaner Blätter 18

New issue of Hz, #16

2011-03-28T15:33:00.000+02:00

Quantum Improvisation: The Cybernetic Presence
by Pauline Oliveros
"It's already evident that computers and human intelligence are merging. What would I want on a musician chip if I were to receive the benefit of neural implant technology? What kind of a 21st Century musician could I be?" Composer/musician and one of the key figures of electronic music Pauline Oliveros' essay from 1999 centres around the question by revisiting 100 years of music history since the first magnetic recording in 1899.

Moistmedia, Technoetics and the Three VRs
by Roy Ascott
One of the most influential theoreticians/artists in the field of telematics Roy Ascott's article about Moistmedia, written in 2000, in which he predicts "a convergence of three VRs" (Virtual, Validated and Vegetal): "At this interspace lies the great challenge to both science and art: the nature of consciousness. A technoetic aesthetic is needed which...may enable us as artists to address the key questions of our time."

Grains of Gold in All This Shift: Web 2.0, Crowdsourcing and Participatory Art
by Amanda Wasielewski
"The Web 2.0 ideas of 'social networking' and 'crowdsourcing' have filtered through to the art world where artists are, whether consciously or not, using Web 2.0 principles and forms in their work." Amanda Wasielewski's critical examination over the recent activities of participatory art both on and offline which "begins to look like crowdsourcing."

Dynamic screen / room:
by Thore Soneson
"During the last decades moving images, video and screens have expanded from on-the-wall projections to dynamic and multi-modulated images in different spatial settings – on multiple screens, in dynamic and interactive room environments and in an immersive physical context." Film maker/producer Thore Soneson's research into the contemporary "dynamic screen" for his project "Journey to Abadyl".

First Museum Shooters
by Mathias Jansson
"When the small company id Software in Texas, USA, 1993 released the videogame Doom few would have guessed that this game would change the entire game industry, and even fewer would have guessed which impact Doom would have on the art world." Game Art specialist Mathias Jansson's article about "museum shooters" in the field of Game Art.

SONOMATERIA: Audio-tactile Composition
by Irad Lee
Irad Lee, sound and interaction designer, "describes the inspiration and implementation of SONOMATERIA, a multi-user sound sculpture, installation, tangible sound interface and intersensory composition," which "aims to explore the mutual reinforcing effect that the manipulation of tactile and auditory perceptions can have on each other...."

Sound art courses in Sweden

2011-03-27T09:06:00.003+02:00

There are at least two courses in sound art for active professionals (e.g. artists, musicians, sound engineers) that might be of interest this year.

The first is a one-year sound art course (M.A., 60 ECTS), at The Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts in Stockholm. The course is arranged in collaboration with EMS, and will be taught in Swedish. The course info is also in Swedish, but with some help from a well-known free online service, I've translated it thus:

The master's programme in sound art is a multi-disciplinary training aimed at professionals who are interested to deepen and explore sound art. The training focuses on sound installation and you will explore how sound can be used in different rooms and on different types of sites.

The purpose of the course is to provide an overview of methods and processes within the sound art field, and an understanding of the role of sound in contemporary art.

The goal is to help you gain knowledge and understanding of sound installation in public and other rooms, and how to use sound as a tool in various types of artistic production. In parallel with ongoing practical production training, we will discuss artistic courage and the ethical approach to working with sound in public places.

The second is a distance learning course in sound art and sound design (15 ECTS), at The Department of Music and Media at Luleå University of Technology in Piteå in Northern Sweden. Since the course info is in Swedish, I guess the course will be taught in Swedish, too. English translation:

The course is for artists and other interested who want to work with sound creation and sound design. Your individual production work is done continuously during the course and is combined with seminars, workshops, lectures, group work and individual supervision. Current events in the sound field may be treated on the course.

During the course you will meet active practitioners as lecturers and at workshops. You will learn about various tools like Pure Data and Audiomulch, solder piezo-electric microphones, work with field recordings and sound installations interspersed with studies of existing sound/sound design-work, and immerse yourself in your own project to be presented at the end of the course.

Four meetings during autumn 2011 and 2-3 meetings in spring 2012, combined with distance learning at any place.

The application deadline for ~~both courses~~ is ~~April 15, 2011~~. The deadline for the course at the Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts has been extended to ~~May 17, 2011~~.

Some conference calls for 2011

2011-02-25T21:10:00.008+01:00

FIMPaC 2011. The Forum for Innovation in Music Production and Composition, Thursday 12 & Friday 13 May 2011, Leeds College of Music. Deadline for the submission of proposals: ~~Friday 25 March 2011~~

Audio-visuality. A conference on the experience of audio-visual art, artefacts, and media texts. May 26-29, 2011, Aarhus(?), Denmark. Deadline for paper submissions: ~~February 15, 2011~~

NIME 2011. 11th International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. 30 May - 1 June 2011, Oslo, Norway. Deadline for paper/performance/installation/workshop submissions: ~~31 January 2011 (22:00 CET)~~

EMS 2011. Electroacoustic Music Studies Conference, June 14-18, New York. Deadline for receipt of proposals for papers: ~~Monday, January 17, 2011 midnight EST~~

ICAD 2011. International Community for Auditory Display conference, June 20-24, Budapest. Deadline for papers, posters, and aural categories (short oveview of intent): ~~31 January 2011~~

SMC 2011. 8th Sound and Music Computing Conference, 6-9 July 2011, Padova, Italy. Deadline for paper and music submissions: ~~Friday 25 March 2011~~

ACMC 2011. The Australasian Computer Music Conference 2011, 6-9 July 2011, The School of Music, University of Auckland, New Zealand. The special theme of ACMC11 is Organic Sounds in Live Electroacoustic Music. Deadline for receipt of proposals of papers and creative work: ~~Thursday 31 March 2011~~

ICMC 2011. International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), 31 July to 5 August, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK. Deadline for music and paper submissions: ~~18 January~~

UVM 2011. Understanding Visual Music 2011, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, August 26th and 27th. Deadline for reception of proposals: ~~June 18th, 2011~~

DAFx-11. The 14th International Conference on Digital Audio Effects, September 19-23, IRCAM, Paris, France. Deadline for full paper/poster submissions: ~~Thursday March 31th, 2011~~. The proceedings are available online.

Electroacoustic music meta-bibliography

2011-02-23T12:00:00.000+01:00

The meta-bibliography is available again, in a thoroughly revised and updated version.

(The EAM meta-bibliography is a bibliography of electroacoustic music bibliographies. It is a spin-off from my master's thesis in library and information science, and covers websites, books and journal articles that list items of interest to EAM composers and researchers.)

New journal: JAR - The journal for artistic research

2011-02-20T17:49:00.000+01:00

"The journal for artistic research (JAR) is an international, online, Open Access and peer-reviewed journal for the identification, publication and dissemination of artistic research and its methodologies, from all arts disciplines. The Journal is underpinned by the Research Catalogue (RC), a searchable, documentary database of artistic research work and its exposition, that functions as an inclusive, open-ended, bottom-up research tool supporting the development of the Journal's academic contributions."

Issue #0 presents work by:

Bertha Bermudez, Scott deLahunta, Marijke Hoogenboom, Chris Ziegler, Frederic Bevilacqua, Sarah Fdili Alaoui, Barbara Meneses Gutierrez, Amsterdam
Richard Blythe, Melbourne
Sher Doruff, Amsterdam
Cathy van Eck, Zürich
Mark Fleischman, Cape Town
Abhishek Hazra, Bangalore
Anders Hultqvist, Gothenburg
Daniel Kötter, Constanze Fischbeck, Berlin
Tuija Kokkonen, Helsinki
Elina Saloranta, Helsinki
Sissel Tolaas, Berlin
Otto von Busch, Gothenburg

JAR is published by the Society for Artistic Research (SAR). "[SAR] was established in March 2010 as an independent, non-profit organisation for the purpose of publishing JAR." SAR:s institutional members are art and design schools and universities.

The journal invites submissions. JAR is peer-reviewed, but not the RC.

Hz calls for articles

2011-02-13T10:55:00.000+01:00

On-line journal Hz (www.hz-journal.org) is looking for articles on New Media, Net Art, Sound Art, Electro-Acoustic Music, Virtual World/Machinima. We accept earlier published and unpublished articles in English. Please send your submissions to hz-journal@telia.com

Deadline: 1 March, 2011

Hz is published by the non-profit organization Fylkingen in Stockholm. Established in 1933, Fylkingen has been known for introducing yet-to-be-established art forms throughout its history. Nam June Paik, Stockhausen, Cage, Stelarc, etc. have all been introduced to the Swedish audience through Fylkingen. Its members consist of leading composers, musicians, sound artists, dancers, performance artists and video artists in Sweden. For more information on Fylkingen, please visit http://www.fylkingen.se/about or http://www.hz-journal.org/n4/hultberg.html

The journal of music and meaning revamped

2011-02-13T09:34:00.001+01:00

In the new issue, no. 9, of The journal of music and meaning, the editors announce that the journal will be published in blog format from now on. Entire issues will not be published at the same time. Instead, papers will appear in the blog when ready. The posts consists of and abstract, the author's credentials, and a link to the paper in PDF. This is good news, although I find the new format somewhat confusing, perhaps because the new issue lacks a table of contents.

JMM #9 contains some articles of particular interest to readers of this blog:

"Through thick and thin: the ontology of tape music" by Adam Stansbie
"Meaningful scribbles: an approach to textual analysis of unconventional musical notations" by Douglas C. Wadle
"Luciano Berio’s "Sequenza V" analyzed along the lines of four analytical dimensions proposed by the composer" by Niels Chr. Hansen
"Rediscovering Artaud's sonic order" by Felipe Otondo
"Why recorded music matters: a review essay" by David Hebert

Record label list updated

2011-01-30T09:05:00.000+01:00

Updated and added a few labels (mostly cassette ones) to the Swedish record label list.

Some notes from the Lustmord seminar at Audiorama, January 14

2011-01-23T15:20:00.001+01:00

Brian Williams, a.k.a Lustmord, resists being pigeonholed, but it's probably safe to say that Lustmord was instrumental in creating the dark ambient genre in the early 1980's. During this period, he was also involved with the industrial acts SPK, Throbbing Gristle and Nurse with Wound. Among Lustmord's most successful records are Heresy (1990), The Place Where the Black Stars Hang (1994), and Stalker (together with Robert Rich, 1995). In 1993, he started working as a sound designer and sometimes composer for motion pictures, e.g. The Crow, From Dusk till Dawn and Underworld. A born Welsh, he now resides in Los Angeles, where he has collaborated with metal bands Tool and Melvins.

Williams began the seminar by playing Lustmord’s very first track, and told us a bit about his childhood and attending art school in the U.K. He continued by playing some examples of his work in movie sound design, which mainly entails providing composers with sound libraries, where the same basic sounds are available in many variants. Ordinary sounds are usually transformed to feel bigger and have more impact. Sounds and music are added during post-production, when the team is short of time and money, so composers and sound designers have to work under heavy time pressure.

Lustmord was started because Williams didn’t hear the music he wanted to hear, but now he never listens to dark ambient, dislikes being imitated, and doesn’t want to collaborate with people doing the same thing as himself. He prefers Kraftwerk and music with a slow groove, like dub and early hip hop.

Williams considers a Lustmord album a single work, not a collection of tracks. Rather than being “dark” or “ambient”, he wants to express a sense of awe and a cosmic world view, where man is insignificant (Williams is an atheist). The records are always based on a specific idea, but he categorically denied seeing pictures in his head when composing: “I work only in sound”. The sound should be big and dynamic, and he uses none or very little compression.

When asked why he so seldom plays live, he answered that it hadn’t been very practical earlier, and that he hadn’t thought that it would be very interesting for an audience, but he changed his mind after seeing Kraftwerk using laptops on stage and after his own performance for Church of Satan in 2006.

Although Williams didn’t seem very eager to speak about his work, and hadn’t prepared his presentation thoroughly, he willingly answered the audience’s questions. He was humble about his accomplishments, and described himself as a ”non-musician”, due to his lack of formal training. He stressed that equipment doesn’t matter, but ideas do, and considers himself to have a punk attitude – “You can do it!” – from the early years spent with Throbbing Gristle, when “punk actually meant something for a year or so”. He stated that punk isn’t a style, but an approach, a way to do something. Perhaps that is the reason why Williams doesn’t want to be associated with a certain genre.

Denna text finns också på svenska hos Nutida Musik.

New books in EMS' library

2011-01-18T10:42:00.001+01:00

Daniels, Dieter ; Naumann, Sandra & Thoben, Jan: See this sound : audiovisuology : compendium : an interdisciplinary survey of audiovisual culture
Falkenberg Hansen, Kjetil: The acoustics and performance of DJ scratching : analysis and modelling
Flisbäck, Marita: Konstnärernas inkomster ur ett jämställdhetsperspektiv : ekonomi, arbete och familjeliv
Foy, George Michelsen: Zero decibels : the quest for absolute silence
Gilfillan, Daniel: Pieces of sound : German experimental radio
Groth, Sanne Krogh: To musikkulturer - én institution : forskningsstrategier og text-ljudkompositioner ved det svenske elektronmusikstudie EMS i 1960'erne og 1970'erne
Keizer, Garret: The unwanted sound of everything we want : a book about noise
Bussy, Pascal: Kraftwerk : man, machine and music
Herzogenrath, Wuld & Ingmar Lähnemann: Christina Kubisch : Stromzeichnungen : arbeiten = electrical drawings : works 1974-2008
Kubisch, Christina: Wellenfang
Meyer, Petra Maria (ed.): Acoustic turn
Motte-Haber, Helga de la ; Osterwold, Matthias & Weckwerth, Georg: Sonambiente 2006 Berlin : klang kunst sound art
Niebur, Louis: Special sound : the creation and legacy of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
Nudds, Matthew & O’Callaghan, Casey (ed.): Sounds and perception : new philosophical essays
O’Callaghan, Casey: Sounds : a philosophical theory
Peters, Gary: The philosophy of improvisation
Prochnik, George: In pursuit of silence : listening for meaning in a world of noise
Ramb, Stefanie: Zwischen radioteater und ljudkonst : ist das Hörspiel in Schweden auf unabhängigen Wegen in eine experimentelle Zukunft?
Seiffarth, Carsten & Steffens, Markus (ed.): Singuhr - hoergalerie in parochial : sound art in Berlin : 1996-2006
Seiffarth, Carsten; Schneider, Detlev & Broeckmann, Andreas (ed.): Tesla Berlin : medien>kunst<labor
Whittington, William: Sound design and science fiction

PhD for Paulina Sundin

2011-01-07T09:01:00.003+01:00

Congratulations to Swedish composer Paulina Sundin, who has recently finished her doctoral dissertation, Re-inventing harmony in electroacoustic music : a commentary on my recent music! Here is the abstract:

Re-inventing Harmony in Electroacoustic Music reflects on research regarding structuring pitch-based material in my music written between 1999 and 2010. The selected works illustrates the process leading up to my research based on psychoacoustic consonance and dissonance and my strategies to create a new kind of harmony – a harmony based on concrete sounds with inharmonic spectra.

The discussion will refer to pieces by composers who have worked with harmony based on the analysis of sound spectra; instrumental and mixed works by spectralist composers such as Grisey, Murail and Saariaho and electroacoustic works by Harvey and others.

I will address the importance of research in the psychoacoustic field, in particular, research by William A. Sethares regarding inharmonic spectra and scales and how it has affected my works.

(One can download the dissertation via the link above, although it's painfully slow, at least right now, and sometimes the download is aborted.)

eContact! calls for contributions

2010-10-26T14:45:00.000+02:00

eContact! 13.2 - Keyboard + Live EA: The Performer's Perspective
eContact! extends an open call for contributions to an issue focussing on the situation of the performer of works for keyboard and live electronics, coordinated by Guest Editor Sebastian Berweck.

Submission deadline: 15 January 2011
Publication: 15 February 2011

Submission information: http://cec.concordia.ca/econtact/13_2/call.html

eContact! 13.3 - Creative Rights and the Electroacoustic Economy
eContact! extends an open call for contributions to an issue - coordinated by Guest Editor David Ogborn — exploring the way that intellectual property (IP) issues affect electroacoustic (EA) practice: from the various IP models (copyright and left, creative commons) through to the larger questions of how individual artists, EA support organizations and the culture as a whole self-organize and sustain themselves economically.

Submission deadline: 31 January 2011
Publication: 28 February 2011

Submission information: http://cec.concordia.ca/econtact/13_3/call.html

More radio and sound art

2010-10-16T08:34:00.001+02:00

Here are some assorted links mostly related to radio and sound art:

The radio art seminar I attended last week was mentioned by Jesper Olsson in Svenska Dagbladet: Brechts visioner för radion är nära ("Brecht's visions for radio approach reality"). He also referred to the October issue of The Wire, Noise in the ether, devoted to creative broadcasting.
The Wire also sponsors Cut & Splice: Transmission, an annual experimental music and sound art festival produced by Sound and Music and BBC Radio 3.
Leftob is a netradio project of the Petcord netlabel. By the way, when will Electroacoustic Sweden, the webradio from SEAMS/Elektron, be available again? We miss it!
Resonance is a new European sound art network based in the Netherlands.
Hydrophonia is a festival "dedicated to hydrophonic sound art and raising public awareness of how man-made ocean noise affects marine life."

And now for something completely different:

Canoris is a new web platform/API for sound/music analysis and voice synthesis.

Two seminars

2010-10-10T18:14:00.004+02:00

I attended two seminars this week at Audiorama, the new multichannel venue for radiophonic/sound art in Stockholm. At the first, Morton Subotnick talked about his life in music, beginning with the San Francicso Tape Music Center and the development of the Buchla synthesiser, and ending with his latest mixed media work, Jacob's Room. Many of his anecdotes have already been told in Bernsteins The San Francisco Tape Music Center: 1960s counterculture and the avant-garde (and, according to Andreas Engström, by Pauline Oliveros), but it was interesting all the same.

The other seminar was about radio and radio art. Mats Lindström, director of EMS, introduced the subject by speaking on the importance of Sveriges Radio (the Swedish national radio and the founder of EMS) for electroacoustic music, radio art and text-sound composition.

John Kieffer, creative director of Sound and music (which Sonic Arts Network has merged into), talked about radio's creation of new ways of listening, both collective and solitary: the scarcity of radios in Jamaica made people gather to listen to American music programmes, which led to the sound system culture; in England, people met at car parks to listen to their favourite shows on their car radios; and Kieffer's concentrated listening to bad quality pirate radio in bed at night, which gave rise to an intense experience comparable to deep listening.

Researcher Kersten Glandien spoke about the relation between radio and sound art. According to Glandien, radio art is one-directional and exclusively aural, while sound art is interactive and connected to other media. Dependent on public radio and its policies, the "inefficient" radio art might turn into a dying genre due to commercialisation and dwindling resources, whereas sound art has developed close ties with galleries and museums, and is now fully integrated in the art world.

If I interpret her correctly, there are, however, some trends that point to a brighter future for radio art. One is the creation of new independent radio stations, run by enthusiasts and using new web technology to reach out, e.g. Resonance104.4fm in the UK and WFMU in the USA. Another is the ties between sound art and radio art, and the increasing collaboration between radio stations, new media organisations and art institutions. A third trend is the new interest in single-sense experience and focused listening. She also mentioned the vast archives of sound works assembled at public radio stations, and the problem of preserving and make them known.

An interesting discussion followed on the temporal aspects of broadcasting vs. mp3-players and the like, and on the importance of public radio for artists. There still seems to be funding for commissions of radio/sound art available, and public radio still matters for distributing art and music outside the large cities.

New books in EMS' library

2010-09-30T15:36:00.001+02:00

Some books I grabbed at the conference yesterday:

Jokitulppo, Jaana: Non occupational noise : sources, exposure and effects on hearing
Karlsson, Henrik (red.): Papers presented at the conference ”Stockholm, hey, listen!”, June 9-13, 1998
Karlsson, Henrik (red.): From awareness to action : proceedings from ”Stockholm, hey listen!” : conference on acoustic ecology, Stockholm, June 9-13, 1998
Landström, Ulf & Mossberg, Frans: Man and sound environment 2010 : proceedings
Selander, Jenny: Traffic noise and cardiovascular disease
Willim, Robert (red.): Virtualiteter : sex essäer

New issue of Hz, #15, September 2010

2010-09-27T21:10:00.001+02:00

Contents

"Towards a Soundly Ecstatic Electronica" by Joseph Nechvatal
Artist/art theoretician Joseph Nechvatal's text deals with a phantasmagorical theorization of electronic-based sound art that places sound art in the context of the abstract unlimited-field of representation made possible by electronic communications.

"Of Ultrasound, Art and Science" by Michael Dotolo
Multimedia artist/musician Michael Dotolo discusses sound art in the context of art-science relating to ultrasound. "My intent in studying the invisible sonic spectrum is to understand the importance that these frequencies bare on the complex communicative fabric of the natural and technological aspects of our lives."

"Acoustics, Not Theatre" by Adrian Knight
Composer Adrian Knight: "Sound, time and space are our way of dividing a multidimensional reality into manageable subunits. Sound in time and space constitute what we call music….[O]f these three subunits, space is the most complex, and also most dependent on social and architectural necessity and availability"

"Iannis Xenakis: Form and Transformation" by JD Pirtle
"Avant-garde composer, architect and music theorist Iannis Xenakis consistently pushed the boundaries of music, mathematics, architecture and science in his work." Artist JD Pirtle examines Xenakis' hybridised and interdisciplinary practice in which Xenakis was able to "augment, transform, invert or rotate" the many ways architecture and music are related.

"James Turrell's Mendota Stoppages and Roden Crater: When the Studio and the Art Become One" by JD Pirtle
Artist JD Pirtle reviews the relation between the space and the art in the practice of James Turrell, whose early departure from the white cube tradition manifests break-down of the division "studio, non-studio, anti-studio." Two of Turrell’s pieces, Mendota Stoppages and Roden Crater are revisited.

"Teorema Ritournelle" by Chritina McPhee
Chritina McPhee: "This text came into being as I struggled to explain to myself why the idea of a witness, or wit(h)nessing could apply to the status of an object like a drawing. Teorema Ritournelle turns on some observations and flights around Pasolini's film TEOREMA, and applies them to the transposition of drawings into presences of an inordinate kind."

Various stuff

2010-09-26T10:00:00.005+02:00

Soundscape studies, (urban) sound design and the like seem to be rather popular in Sweden these days. I'm attending the conference Man & Sound Environment 2010 in Lund this week, a conference immediately followed by another one in Stockholm, Designing Soundscape for Sustainable Urban Development, on September, 30-October, 1.

Another recent conference held in Sweden was the 5th Audio Mostly Conference : A Conference on Interaction with Sound, September, 15-17, which took place in Piteå in Northern Sweden. Proceedings are avalible online.

For our Swedish readers
Ljudplanering is a new web portal on urban soundscapes, developed in collaboration between Movium and landscape architect Gunnar Cerwén.

There's been a recent exchange in Svenska Dagbladet on the research project "Acoustic design artifacts and methods for urban soundscapes" and its companion sound installation at Mariatorget, Stockholm:

Helena Granström: Virtuellt naturljud inte utan problem
Björn Hellström's reply and a short response från Granström: Kritiken missar målet

New online journal Interference calls for papers

2010-09-26T09:32:00.001+02:00

Interference : a journal of audio culture, are pleased to announce a call for papers for the inaugural issue "An ear alone is not a being" : embodied mediations in audio culture.

To what extent are acoustic practices embodied? How does physical embodiment shape auditory cognition? What role do processes such as biofeedback and genetic algorithms play in contemporary musical practices? What kinds of idealised listening subjects are encoded in acoustic algorithms such as codecs, head-related transfer functions or binaural recording specifications? How are psychoacoustic effects deployed for and against the body? How might we speak about listening practices that extend beyond the ear to sensorial or haptic accounts of audition?

The inaugural issue of Interference investigates the mediative role of the body in sonic practices. Embodied mediation presumes a reciprocal process: we explore how listening experiences and acoustic practices are shaped by corporeality, but we also attend to the many ways in which these processes work upon that body, through psychophysical affect and the representation and encoding of embodied subjects in acoustic performances, technologies, and cultural artefacts. Submissions may take the form of academic articles or statements of research and practice. For more information see the submission guidelines.

Proposals for this issue of Interference might address, but not exclusively, some of the following issues and points of discussion:

Research in Embodied Music Cognition
Phenomenology of Sound
Biofeedback: the role played by corporeality in sonic arts, musical practices, performance and design
Sonic Dominance: the use of acoustic properties as affective tools
Sonic Mediations: Exploring the mediative role of the body between cognitive response and acoustic environment. Exploring the relationship between the body and tools for acoustic composition and performance.
Encoding Bodies: An exploration of how the body might be represented or encoded in practices as diverse as instrument design, networked performances, psychoacoustic algorithms etc.
Haptic or intersensory listening practices

Interference balances its content between academic and practice based research and therefore accepts proposals for both academic papers and accounts of practice based research.

Deadline for submission of Abstracts of 250 words October 31st 2010
Deadline for Completed Papers January 15th 2011
Submissions can be made to editor@interferencejournal.com
Publication aimed for Spring 2011

For more information, and submission guidelines please se the Submission Guidelines or contact editor@interferencejournal.com

NIME 2011 - Call for participation

2010-09-26T09:26:00.001+02:00

11th International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME 2011)
30 May - 1 June 2011, Oslo, Norway

We invite you to be part of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. The core purpose of the NIME conference is to present the latest results in design, development, performance and analysis of/for/with new interfaces/instruments for musical use. In 2011 we will put an extra emphasis on performance aspects related to NIME, something which will also be addressed in a symposium, workshops and master classes in the days leading up to the conference.

We invite for the following types of submissions (see below for details):
- Paper (oral/poster/demo)
- Performance
- Performance Plus Paper
- Installation/exhibition
- Workshop

IMPORTANT DATES
- SID exhibition proposals: 5 November 2010 (22:00 CET)
- Paper/performance/installation/workshop submission: 31 January 2011 (22:00 CET)
- Review notification: 18 March 2011
- Final paper deadline: 26 April 2011

TOPICS
- Novel controllers and interfaces for musical expression
- Novel musical instruments
- Augmented/hyper instruments
- Novel controllers for collaborative performance
- Interfaces for dance and physical expression
- Interactive game music
- Robotic music
- Interactive sound and multimedia installations
- Interactive sonification
- Sensor and actuator technologies
- Haptic and force feedback devices
- Interface protocols and data formats
- Motion, gesture and music
- Perceptual and cognitive issues
- Interactivity design and software tools
- Sonic interaction design
- NIME intersecting with game design
- Musical mapping strategies
- Performance analysis
- Performance rendering and generative algorithms
- Machine learning in performance systems
- Experiences with novel interfaces in live performance and composition
- Surveys of past work and stimulating ideas for future research
- Historical studies in twentieth-century instrument design
- Experiences with novel interfaces in education and entertainment
- Reports on student projects in the framework of NIME related courses
- Artistic, cultural, and social impact of NIME technology
- Biological and bio-inspired systems
- Mobile music technologies
- Musical human-computer interaction
- Multimodal expressive interfaces
- Practice-based research approaches/methodologies/criticism

CALL FOR PAPERS
We welcome submissions on all above mentioned (and other) topics related to development and artistic use of new interfaces for musical expression. There are three different paper submission categories:
- Full paper (up to 6 pages in proceedings, longer oral presentation,
optional demo)
- Short paper/poster (up to 4 pages in proceedings, shorter oral
presentation or poster, optional demo)
- Demonstration (up to 2 pages in proceedings)
All accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings.
Paper submission information: http://www.nime2011.org/submission/#papers

CALL FOR PERFORMANCES
We welcome submission of pieces for three different types of performance venues:
- Concert hall performance
- Club performance
- Foyer "stunt" performance
Any type of NIME performance pieces are welcome, but we would particularly like to encourage the use of motion capture techniques in performance. For this we can make available several different types of motion capture systems (Qualisys, XSens, Optitrack, Mega). Network pieces and mobile music pieces are also encouraged. Within reasonable limits, we may be able to provide musicians to perform pieces. Performance submission information: http://www.nime2011.org/submission/#performances

CALL FOR PERFORMANCE PLUS PAPER
To support more cross-disciplinary work between scientific and artistic research, we highly encourage submission of performance pieces related to papers. Here the scientific presentation may be the basis for the artistic presentation, or vice versa. Submissions within this category will have to be done for both the piece and the paper, with a clear note that paper and piece belongs together. Evaluation will be done on the combined quality of both submissions.

CALL FOR INSTALLATIONS
In connection with NIME 2011 an exhibition on sonic interaction design will be curated in collaboration with the EU COST IC0601 Action on Sonic Interaction Design (SID). For the exhibition we are looking for works using sonic interaction within arts, music and design as well as examples of sonification for research and artistic purposes. The exhibition will take place at the Norwegian Museum of Science, Technology and Medicine and run for three months over the summer 2011. We also aim to include works in public spaces to be presented at various locations in Oslo (possibly) for a shorter duration in parallel with NIME. This is a curated exhibition, and there is a possibility for funding and assistance to be provided for selected artists. Note that there is an early deadline for submissions within this category (5 November). Further enquiries concerning the SID exhibition should be addressed to the curators (exhibition@nime2011.org).

In addition to the exhibition, we also call for installations to be presented during the NIME conference only. These may be foyer location installations or room-based installations. Installation submission information: http://www.nime2011.org/submission/#installations

CALL FOR WORKSHOPS
We call for short (3 hours) or long (6 hours) workshops and tutorials. These can be targeted towards specialist techniques, platforms, hardware, software or pedagogical topics for the advancement of fellow NIME-ers and people with experience related to the topic. They can also be targeted towards visitors to the NIME community, novices/newbies, interested student participants, people from other fields, and members of the public getting to know the potential of NIME.

Tutorial proposers should clearly indicate the audience and assumed knowledge of their intended participants to help us market to the appropriate audience. Workshops and tutorials can relate to, but are not limited to, the topics of the conference. This is a good opportunity to explore a specialized interest or interdisciplinary topic in depth with greater time for discourse, debate, collaboration. Admission to workshops and tutorials will be charged separately from the main conference. Proposer(s) are responsible for publishing any workshop proceedings (if desired) and should engage in the promotion of their event amongst own networks. Workshops may be cancelled or combined if there is inadequate participation. Workshop submission information: http://www.nime2011.org/submission/#workshops

If you have any inquiries, please email us at post@nime2011.org. Please feel free to forward this message to others. On behalf of the NIME 2011 committee, Alexander Refsum Jensenius (University of Oslo)
Kjell Tore Innervik (Norwegian Academy of Music)

New books and CDs in EMS' library

2010-09-11T08:48:00.003+02:00

New books

Lamers, Maurits (ed.): Proceedings of the Linux Audio Concerence 2010
Prieberg, Fred K.: Musica ex machina; über das Verhältnis von Musik und Technik
Rodgers, Tara: Pink noises : women on electronic music and sound

New CDs

Bennett, Gerald: Chrysopée électronique 31
Bertilsson, Andreas: Paramount
Biffarella, Gonzalo: Mestizaje (Chrysopée électronique 10)
Boeswillewald, Pierre: Chrysopée électronique 3
Boeswillewald, Pierre: Chrysopée électronique 27
Clozier, Christian: Chrysopée électronique 7
Cochini, Roger: Chrysopée électronique 6
Compendium international : Bourges 2004 (Chrysopée électronique 26)
Di Scipio, Agostino: Paysage historiques : musique electroacoustique 1998-2005 (Chrysopée électronique 25)
López, Francisco: Through the looking-glass
Messiaen, Olivier: Turangalîla-symphonie
The Radiophonic Workshop
Riley, Terry: In C
Les saisons (Chrysopée électronique 23)
Savouret, Alain: Chrysopée électronique 28
Serra, Luis Maria: Musica electroacustica (Chrysopée électronique 19)
Skog, Ylva: Terra firma
Vaggione, Horacio & Mead, Philip: Musiques pour piano et electroacoustique (Chrysopée électronique 5)
Wishart, Trevor: Fabulous Paris : a virtual oratorio

Call: Seventh International Conference on Music Since 1900

2010-09-03T14:25:00.002+02:00

The theme of the Biennial Conference is music since 1900, conceived in the broadest possible terms. Proposals for papers may be submitted on any topic relating to 20th- and 21st-century musics (of any genre), drawing on scholarly approaches from any relevant intellectual discipline.

The Music Analysis Conference welcomes papers on any aspect of theory and analysis relating to music of any genre and historical period.

Editorial representatives from Music Analysis and twentieth-century music will be keen to discuss the possibility of developing conference papers into articles for their respective journals.

In addition to open sessions, the Programme Committee warmly invites proposals for papers to be read at the sessions devoted to the following themes:

computing and contemporary musicology
curating the new
electroacoustic music and intermedia
film music
the future of the digital economy
the impact of technology on music
jazz
new historiographies
phenomenology
popular music
temporalities
timbre

Proposals in the following categories will be considered:

Papers (20 minutes maximum, with 10 minutes for discussion)
Paper sessions (three or four papers, each of 20 minutes maximum, with 10 minutes for discussion)
Roundtable discussions (up to 6 participants, each giving a short position paper, followed by a general discussion)
Recitals, lecture-recitals and lectures illustrated by sound diffusions or audio-visual screenings

Programme Committee: Dr Paul Archbold, Dr Arved Ashby, Prof. Rachel Cowgill, Prof. William Drabkin, Dr Nicholas Gebhardt, Prof. Adam Krims, Dr Alan Marsden, Prof. Deborah Mawer, Prof. Peter Nelson, Dr Nicholas Reyland, Prof. Michael Spitzer, Dr Edward Venn (Chair), Dr Charles Wilson.

Proposal Instructions/Guidelines
Abstracts and proposals should be prepared as follows:

For individual papers: up to 250 words
For paper sessions: 250-word (maximum) summary and up to 250 words for each session participant
For roundtable discussions: 250-word (maximum) and up to 150 words for each panel participant
For recitals, lecture-recitals and lectures illustrated by sound diffusions or audio-visual screenings: 250 word (maximum) summary, plus participant CVs and recordings / scores / other details of works to be included in the event

Further information for applicants:

Only one proposal of each type is permitted per applicant
Proposals should not substantially duplicate presentations being given at conferences or other events proximate in time or place to ICMSN 2011 / LancMAC
All proposals must be sent by email as a MS Word attachment to msnmac2011@lancaster.ac.uk

DEADLINE FOR PROPOSAL SUBMISSION: 3 DECEMBER 2010

Successful applicants will be informed by 17 January 2011

Hz calls for submissions

2010-08-22T08:24:00.002+02:00

On-line journal Hz is looking for articles on New Media, Net Art, Sound Art, Electro-Acoustic Music, Virtual World/Machinima. We accept earlier published and unpublished articles in English. Please send your submissions to hz-journal@telia.com

Deadline: 5 September, 2010

Hz is published by the non-profit organization Fylkingen in Stockholm. Established in 1933, Fylkingen has been known for introducing yet-to-be-established art forms throughout its history. Nam June Paik, Stockhausen, Cage, Stelarc, etc. have all been introduced to the Swedish audience through Fylkingen. Its members consist of leading composers, musicians, sound artists, dancers, performance artists and video artists in Sweden.

For more information on Fylkingen, please visit http://www.fylkingen.se/about or http://www.hz-journal.org/n4/hultberg.html

SuperCollider workshop in Bergen

2010-08-22T08:19:00.002+02:00

Tuesday 28. September – Friday 1. October, Bergen, Norway

BEK, the Bergen center for electronic arts, invites musicians, programmers and composers to a four-days workshop focusing on the software MODALITY. It’s free to attend, but you have to cover your own travel and stay.

Modality is a tool for building electro-instruments in SuperCollider under construction by Jeff Carey og Bjørnar Habbestad. The workshop will elucidate this development through presentations, discussions and open code-sessions.

Invited participants are Jeff Carey, Alberto di Campo, Wouter Snoei and Marije Baalman, Trond Lossius and Bjørnar Habbestad. themes to be covered are: Modal Control strategies, sensor input, DBAP spatialisation, Proxy Space, Quark, Mapping strategies etc.

The workshop is open for participants skilled in working with SuperCollider.

Contact BEK v/ Lars Ove Toft for registration. lars.ove.toftATbek.no

New books in EMS' library

2010-08-21T10:08:00.004+02:00

Please note that some of these "new" books (especially the reports on sound synthesis) are in fact old ones, found in EMS' archives.

Banks, J.D. ; Berg, P. ; Rowe, R. ; Theriault, D.: SSP : a bi-parametric approach to sound synthesis (Sonological reports ; no. 5)
Bayle, François: Erosphère
Beauchamp, James W.: A computer system for time-variant harmonic analysis and synthesis of musical tones (Technical report ; no. 15 / University of Illinois, School of Music, Experimental Music Studio)
Beauchamp, James W.: A report on the Magnavox sponsored research investigation ”The development of new electronic systems for generating musical sound” (Technical report ; no. 10 / University of Illinois, School of Music, Experimental Music Studio)
Beauchamp, James W.: A statement of progress on the research investigation, ’Generation and creation of new electronic sounds’
Bennett, Gerald: Research at IRCAM in 1978 (Rapports IRCAM ; 19/79)
Bilbao, Stefan: Numerical sound synthesis : finite difference schemes and simulation in musical acoustics
Bjurman, Jens: Elektronmusikstudion : ett förteckningsarbete
Bjurman, Jens: EMS arkivförteckning
Bäckström, Per: Vårt brokigas ochellericke! : om experimentell poesi
Cooke, Lynne & Kelly, Karen (red.): Max Neuhaus : Times Square, Time Piece Beacon
Demers, Joanna: Listening through the noise : the aesthetics of experimental electronic music
Fucks, Wilhelm: Mathematische Analyse der Formalstruktur von Musik (Forschungsberichte des Wirtschafts- und Verkehrsministeriums Nordrhein-Westfalen ; Nr. 357)
Gardner, John: Computer facilities for music at IRCAM, as of October, 1977 (Rapports IRCAM ; 3/78)
Hansen, Sven & Wedin, Aaby: Mikrofoner för TV-film (Tekniska Utbildningens serie / Sveriges Radio ; nr 6)
Hiller, Lejaren A.: Report on contemporary experimental music, 1961 (Technical report ; no. 4 / University of Illinois, School of Music, Experimental Music Studio)
Hiller, Lejaren A.: Seven electronic studies for two-channel tape recorder (1963) (Technical report ; no. 6 / University of Illinois, School of Music, Experimental Music Studio)
IRCAM: Annual report 1990
Jensen, Erik Granly & LaBelle, Brandon: Radio territories
Küpper, Leo: Couleurs sinusoidales et potentiels d’attraction des sons sinusoidaux
Nyquist, Bengt & Valentin, Karl-Otto: Musikteknik (Tekniska Utbildningens serie / Sveriges Radio ; nr 12)
Nösselt, Volker: Die Tonhöhenbewegungsinformation und ihre Perzeptionsverhaltensweisen in Geräuschen : intern rapport : Maart 1966. Deel I
Nösselt, Volker: Die Tonhöhenbewegungsinformation und ihre Perzeptionsverhaltensweisen in Geräuschen : intern rapport : Maart 1966. Deel II
Peters, G. David: Research and development in computer-assisted instruction in music at the University of Illinois
Reynolds, Roger: Explorations in sound/space manipulation, I (1975) (Reports from the center : an occasional series of publications by the Center for Music Experiment and Related Research, University of California at San Diego ; vol. 1, no.1)
Risset, Jean-Claude: Hauteur et timbre des sons (Rapports IRCAM ; 11/78)
Risset, Jean-Claude: Paradoxes de hauteur (Rapports IRCAM ; 10/78)
Rydbeck, Olof: I maktens närhet : diplomat, radiochef, FN-ämbetsman
Sicko, Dan: Techno rebels : the renegades of electronic funk
Statens kulturråd: Uppföljning av Access (Kulturrådets skriftserie 2010:1)
Stenberg, Ulf: Den allvarsamme skrattaren
Struycken, Peter: Linarc (Sonological reports ; no. 3)
Toop, David: Sinister resonance : the mediumship of the listener
Trautmann, Lutz & Rabenstein, Rudolf: Digital sound synthesis by physical modeling using the functional transformation method

New proceedings online

2010-07-30T09:53:00.003+02:00

7th Sound and Music Computing Conference
The papers presented at the 7th Sound and Music Computing Conference that took place at the UPF from the 21st to the 24th on July 2010 are now online at http://smcnetwork.org/resources/smc2010. The papers have been published on the smcnetwork.org website under a Creative Commons license.

Interactive Sonification workshop - ISon 2010
The proceedings of the Interactive Sonification workshop - ISon 2010 are now available on-line at http://www.interactive-sonification.org/ISon2010/proceedings/. The proceedings are licensed as an Open Access publication.

Call for abstracts: Sound Experience – Experiencing Sound

2010-07-16T22:25:00.004+02:00

A new open access journal, SoundEffects - An Interdisciplinary Journal of Sound and Sound Experience, calls for articles:

Call for abstracts: Sound Experience – Experiencing Sound
The first issue of SoundEffects raises the question of the epistemological potential of sound. How does sound provoke and influence the way in which we experience the world? How can we talk about the phenomenological, bodily experience that sound produces? More than ever, everyday life is mediated by a multitude of digitized and mechanically reproduced sounds. In Michael Bull's words: "Waking, walking, driving, working and even falling asleep are all done to music or some other acoustic accompaniment" (Bull, 2003). Never has urban life been noisier. Yet within philosophical, sociological, and aesthetic frameworks, the world is still mostly conceived of as a visual reality. Sound produces meaning in numerous ways, both through the phenomenological, bodily experience of sound and through emerging and changing discourses of cultural practice. Responding to this condition, contemporary sound research must reflect upon the various ways in which the world is experienced through sound.

We welcome scholars from any discipline within the humanities and the social sciences to reflect upon this complex yet crucial aspect of contemporary life.

Topics of interest may include (but are not limited to):

Sound experience within the arts
Sound in media and communication
Sound and social interaction
Historical perspectives on sound
Cross-modal experiences of sound

An abstract of 300 words should be sent by e-mail to aestng(at)hum.au.dk no later than October 15, 2010. Full articles are due on January 15, 2011.

Poet and text-sound artist Bengt Emil Johnson dead

2010-07-15T13:34:00.011+02:00

Bengt Emil Johnson was born 1936 in Saxdalen, Dalecarlia, and was one of the pioneers of Swedish text-sound composition and electroacoustic music. He studied piano and composition for Knut Wiggen, but later become more interested in poetry. Johnson worked at Sveriges Radio (the Swedish national radio), and edited the contemporary music journal Nutida Musik for many years. He passed away on July, 14, 2010.

Johnson's text-sound compositions have been released on e.g. Text-Sound Compositions - A Stockholm Festival and The Pioneers (PSCD 63) from Phono Suecia, and some of them are available at UbuWeb. There are also some material available at konkretpoesi.se (in Danish/Swedish).

Update 2010-07-25. Some press voices (in Swedish only):

Poesins gossen Ruda tog sig an det svåra enkla by Tommy Olofsson
Bengt Emil Johnson till minne by Jonas Ellerström
Blues för Bengt Emil by Ulf Lundén
Poet full av djärvhet by Per Svensson
Över sista gränsen by Magnus Haglund

There is also a recent dissertation (in Swedish) on Johnsons poetry: "Tro mig på min ort" : Oöversättligheten som tematiskt komplex i Bengt Emil Johnsons poesi 1973-1982 by Johan Alfredsson, published by Holzweg.

The archive of EMS and related archives

2010-06-04T17:14:00.027+02:00

The archives of EMS and Fylkingen were donated to the Music and Theatre Library of Sweden in 2009. Archivist Jens Bjurman processed the EMS archive during spring 2010, and the inventory (PDF, in Swedish) is now published on the library website (his master's thesis on the processing can be found here). For EMS's tape archive, see below. The Fylkingen tape archive is partly digitised and available for research at Fylkingen.

The Music and Theatre Library also holds some other archives of interest to researchers in Swedish electronic music (links are to the inventories, if available. Please note that most of them are in Swedish):

Sven-Erik Bäck (PDF) (1919-1994). Autographs, correspondence etc. can also be found in:

Elektronmusik (PDF). Sources used by Olle Olsson for his work list Electroacoustic music in Sweden : musique concrete, computer music, live-electronic, text-sound composition (1986?).
Ulf Grahn (PDF). Autographs, sketches, correspondence etc.
Bengt Hambraeus (1928-2000). The main Hambraeus archive is in Canada: Bengt Hambraeus fonds, but there are some autographs and other manuscripts in the Bo Wallner archive.
Ralph Lundsten (b. 1936) and his fan club, the Andromeda Fan Society. Autographs, sketches, correspondence, tapes etc.
Arne Mellnäs (1933-2002). Autographs, sketches, correspondence etc.
Ákos Rózmann (PDF) (1939-2005). Autographs, sketches, music scores. Tapes, cd:s and dvd:s are also available for research, but are not listed in the inventory.
SEAMS (The Society for Electroacoustic Music in Sweden). The former Swedish section of ICEM/CIME.

The Music and Theatre Museum stores some of the former studio equipment of EMS, Ralph Lundsten and Ákos Rózmann (information only in Swedish).

In addition, the National Library of Sweden holds the archives of Karl-Birger Blomdahl (1916-1968) and Åke Hodell (1919-2000). There is also a small Öyvind Fahlström (1928-1976) archive (the main one is in Barcelona at the Museum of Contemporary Art). For more information, search for these names in Ediffah (unfortunately, sometimes painfully slow or down). The Hodell tape archive is in SMDB. The archive of his father, Björn Hodell, is at the Music and Theatre Library.

The EMS tape archive
EMS's music archive ("bandarkivet", the tape archive) has been donated to the National Library of Sweden/Audiovisual material for long-time preservation (except for commercially released records, which will be kept in the EMS library). The digitised content will be accessible through the Swedish Media Database (SMDB).

There are three ways to search the EMS music archive:

For digitised materials only, search SMDB with 'collection:"EMS bandarkiv"' to see all available items. Currently, SMDB holds only about 80 works, but more will come. One can listen to these works at the National Library of Sweden/Audiovisual Media, but not online, due to copyright restrictions (what else?).
To search the entire archive, use DISMARC, which I've blogged on elsewhere. The metadata is limited, and one can't listen to the music, but one sees all content, whether digitised or not.
Visit EMS and search the full database. It has some additional functionality compared to SMDB and DISMARC, e.g. an hierarchic display of a composer's works, their versions and audio carriers (based on FRBR). The EMS database is also the most frequently updated, and one can listen to all of the digitised music, including cd:s and dvd:s that haven't been migrated to the database yet.

New books in EMS' library

2010-05-24T20:04:00.004+02:00

ARTI (Artistic Research, Theory and Innovation group at the Amsterdam School of the Arts): Beginning with music, continuing otherwise (Rtrsrch, vol. 2, no. 1)
Bak, Andrea: Else Marie Pade : en biografi
Barry S. Brook (red.): Musicology and the computer : Musicology 1966-2000. A practical program : three symposia 1965-66
Bruland, Inge (red.): Else Marie Pade og Symphonie magnétophonique
Centralantikvariatet: Modern philosophy : from the library of Carl Lesche (Catalogue 13)
Centralantikvariatet: Music : from the library of Carl Lesche (Catalogue 15)
Donnerborg, Troels: Klangen af en stjerne : historien om vidunderbarnet, Else Marie Pade ...
LaBelle, Brandon: Sound culture and everyday life
Liljeholm, Thomas & Parment, Hans: Framgångsrik mönstermodell : Coma, Contemporary music and artists, Växjö : Musik i Syds centrum för nutida konstmusik 2003-2010
Sjöbrandt, Agnes: Ákos Rózmanns arkiv
Tompkins, Dave: How to wreck a nice beach : the vocoder from world war II to hip-hop
Voegelin, Salomé: Listening to noise and silence : towards a philosophy of sound art
Wiggen, Knut: De två musikkulturerna

SuperCollider Symposium 2010 call for Submissions

2010-03-27T21:40:00.000+01:00

SuperCollider Symposium 2010 Berlin
http://supercollider2010.de
http://supercollider.sourceforge.net

We would like to announce that we are hosting the next SuperCollider Symposium in Berlin, September 23-26, 2010. Berlin is a very attractive city for artists and has great diverse and lively music scenes. We have found some great locations for concerts, workshops and conference talks, and we are currently finalizing the rest of the locations and will provide more detailed information on our website shortly.

The symposium will introduce SuperCollider (SC) to new users, show the current state of development, and host talks and presentations of a variety of artistic and/or scientific projects realised with SC. The 4-day conference will be preceeded by 5 days of workshops intended as community service to help beginning programmers, composers and artists with specific SuperCollider techniques. All Concerts, performances and exhibitions will be open to the public.

Call for Works, Installations, Papers, Workshops
We are now inviting proposals for participation in the fourth SuperCollider Symposium in Berlin, Germany, September 23-26, 2010.

You can propose works or installations to be performed or shown in different venues:
http://supercollider2010.de/calls/14-call-for-works
http://supercollider2010.de/venues

You can propose papers and presentations to be read at the conference:
http://supercollider2010.de/calls/15-call-for-papers-presentations-demos

You can propose workshops to be held in September 18-22, 2010
http://supercollider2010.de/calls/16-call-for-workshops

Please read the general info for calls:
http://supercollider2010.de/calls/13-calls-general

All entries will be evaluated by appropriate juries (for details see individual calls).

For more information and contacts go to http://supercollider2010.de

Symposion on Music/Sonic Art call for papers

2010-03-27T21:30:00.000+01:00

In conjunction with InterSymp 2010: 22nd International Conference on Systems Research, Informatics and Cybernetics

Symposion on Music/Sonic Art

August 2-6, 2010
Markgraf-Ludwig Gymnasium, Hardstrasse 2, Baden-Baden, Germany

CALL FOR PAPERS:
We are pleased to announce the International Symposium on Music/Sonic Art: Practices and Theories, an interdisciplinary two-day event to be held in Baden-Baden, Germany. The provisional dates of the Symposium are August 2-3 in order that participants can also attend other symposia such as: the 8th Special Focus Symposium on Art and Science, the 3rd Symposium on Systems Research in Arts and Humanities and Comprovisations: Improvisation Systems in Performing Arts and Technologies.

Proposals for sessions and individual papers for the International Symposium on Music/Sonic Art: Practices and Theories are invited from academics, practitioners and post-graduate students of diverse fields of investigation, according to one of the following formats: academic research paper (including research in progress), report on practice-based work or educational programmes. (Delegates wishing to present performances are advised to consult the call for papers of symposia listed above.) All proposals will be judged based on their scholarly quality, originality and potential for further discourse.

Paper Proposals/Abstracts should be submitted as soon as possible but no later than March 30, 2010. Notification of Acceptance and a Paper Template will be sent to authors by April 9, 2010. Further details on Submission Guidelines, the Copyright Transfer Form, and the Conference Registration Form are available at the IIAS home page: www.iias.edu.

Please note that the early registration fee is 345.00 Euros (per one Conference participant) if paid on or before May 1, 2010 and 395.00 Euros thereafter: this includes participation in all Symposia of the IIAS InterSymp 2010 Conference, the festive reception, the symposium booklets and the Music/Sonic Art Symposium Proceedings - Volume I.

Paper committee: Prof. Dr. Mine Dogantan-Dack (Middlesex University, UK); Prof. Clarence Barlow (University of California, Santa Barbara, USA); Holger Zschenderlein (University of Brighton, UK); Fiorenzo Palermo (University of Middlesex, UK); Dr. John Dack (Lansdown Centre for Electronic Art, Middlesex University, UK).

Sound ACTs call for papers

2010-03-27T21:15:00.001+01:00

Sound as Art - Sound in Culture
Sound in Theory - Sound in History
Conference on Sound Studies

University of Aarhus, Denmark
September 23–25, 2010

The aim of the conference is to profile contemporary sound studies as an interdisciplinary field of studies and to contribute to the discussion and development of the auditive paradigm in general. Key concepts like 'acoustemology', 'acoustic space', 'sonic environment', and 'atmosphere' might be reflected upon and developed as well, both at a theoretical level and with regard to specific cultural, medial and aesthetic contexts.

The program of the conference will consist of keynote lectures, plenary roundtables, thematic workshops and individual presentations of papers and sound art projects. Keynote speakers are Dr. Penelope Gouk (University of Manchester), Dr. Jean-Paul Thibaud (CRESSON), and professor Adam Krims (University of Nottingham).

Special sessions will be held for sound artists to present and discuss their work, and a workshop will take place on Friday where small groups of sound artists will develop sound installations for presentation in the evening. A special call for this stream will be issued.

The conference is organized by the National Research Network on Auditive Culture, the research project Audiovisual Culture, the research group Urban Sound Institute (and www.usit.nu), and the Nordic Branch of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music.

Proposals for presentations (20/10 mins) or workshops (90 mins) must be submitted to the conference organisers/programme committee by April 1, 2010 as an email attachment (rtf/pdf/doc) to soundstudies@hum.au.dk. Please include the following information: Paper abstract and title (max. 200 words), name(s), affiliation, e-mail, and technical equipment required (PC/DVD/CD/data projector/over-head projector/etc.). Notifications of acceptance will be sent no later than May 3, 2010.

The official language of the conference is English. The conference fee is 1.000 D.Kr/€135.

For more info, see http://auditiveculture.ku.dk/dokument7/

New books in EMS' library

2010-03-15T17:23:00.002+01:00

Teknologi för livet : om Experiments in Art and Technology
Adlington, Robert (ed.): Sound commitments : avant-garde music and the sixties
Blomberg, Katja (ed.): Peter Ablinger : hören, hören = hearing, listening
Broman, Per F. ; Engebretsen, Nora A. & Alphonce, Bo (ed.): Crosscurrents and counterpoints : offerings in honor of Bengt Hambræus at 70
Bucht, Gunnar: Rum, människa, musik : essä
Bull, Michael & Back, Les (eds.): The auditory culture reader
Collins, Nick: Introduction to computer music
Dogantan-Dack, Mine: Recorded music : philosophical and critical reflections
Dyson, Frances: Sounding new media : immersion and embodiment in the arts and culture
Goodman, Steve: Sonic warfare : sound, affect, and the ecology of fear
Howe, Hubert S.: Electronic music synthesis
Hultgren, Veronica: Text-ljudkomposition
Kim-Cohen, Seth: In the blink of an ear : toward a non-cochlear sonic art
Krause, Bernie: Wild soundscapes : discovering the voice of the natural world : a book and CD recording
Lunell, Hans: Kompilatorkonstruktion : i teori och praktik
Miranda, Eduardo Reck & Biles, John Al (eds.): Evolutionary computer music
Moore, Brian C. J.: An introduction to the psychology of hearing
Mossberg, Frans (ed.): Sound, mind and emotion : research and aspects : texts from a series of interdisciplinary symposiums arranged 2008 by The Sound Environment Centre at Lund University, Sweden
Nierhaus, Gerhard: Algorithmic composition : paradigms of automated music generation
Park, Tae Hong: Introduction to digital signal processing : computer musically speaking
Stenberg, Ulf: Den gröna potatisen
Taube, Heinrich K.: Notes from the metalevel : introduction to algorithmic music composition
Toole, Floyd E.: Sound reproduction : loudspeakers and rooms
Wierzbicki, James: Louis and Bebe Barron's Forbidden planet : a film score guide
Wisén, Marie & Karlsson, Henri (eds.): - att tvinga tonerna att tala : en bok till Ingvar Lidholm
Zorn, John (ed.): Arcana : musicians on music
Zorn, John (ed.): Arcana II : musicians on music
Zorn, John (ed.): Arcana III : musicians on music
Zorn, John (ed.): Arcana IV : musicians on music

CeReNeM Journal call for papers

2010-02-21T09:55:00.003+01:00

The Journal of the Centre for Research in New Music at the University of Huddersfield is currently soliciting articles for its second edition. The theme of this edition of the Journal will be 'Physicality and Tactility in Contemporary Electronic Music'.

The Journal will be peer reviewed and published online by CeReNeM at the University of Huddersfield. All submissions on this topic will be considered. We are particularly interested in articles concerning the following areas:

physicality as aesthetic in all areas of electronic music (electroacoustic, glitch, microsound, ambient etc.)
live-electronic improvisation
new interfaces
extended instruments
performance practice
sonification of external physical data
sensors
issues of virtuosity in new technology
live coding as performance
perception of physicality in electroacoustic music

Articles should be between 3000 - 6000 words using the attached template and submitted by email to monty(dot)adkins(at)hud(dot)ac(dot)uk by Friday 21st May.

This edition will be co-edited by Dr Monty Adkins and Dr Scott McLaughlin and will be published in July 2010. Further details and enquiries can be made to monty(dot)adkins(at)hud(dot)ac(dot)uk.

FIMPaC 2010 call for papers

2010-02-21T09:43:00.004+01:00

Forum for Innovation in Music Production and Composition (FIMPaC)
Thursday 20 and Friday 21 May 2010
In Association with: Journal for Music, Technology and Education, www.intellectbooks.co.uk

The Forum for Innovation in Music Production and Composition takes place at Leeds College of Music from Thursday 20th to Friday 21st May 2010. FIMPaC is an annual event focusing on research and practice related to innovations in Music Production and Composition. This year's event is in association with the Journal for Music, Technology and Education. FIMPaC¹s goal is to bring together composers, producers, music industry representatives, academics, educators and students to discuss their practice, research and industry experiences; FIMPaC encourages participants and delegates that represent the commercial music industry and academia.

Keynote Speakers

Jazzie B, founder of the collective Soul II Soul is our Keynote for 20th May and will open the conference. He will discuss his experiences within the Commercial Music Industry.
David Toop will open the second day of the conference and address connections between commercial and experimental music and whether we can sustain notions of their independence. David will also be performing in the evening.

Call for Papers
This year's call for papers is in association with the Journal for Music, Technology and Education. Proposers are asked to indicate on their submission if they would like their work to be considered for publication in a forthcoming issue of the journal.

For more information go to http://www.lcm.ac.uk/research-conference/fimpac.htm.

SUM - symposium and concert in Stockholm

2010-02-15T18:15:00.000+01:00

SUM symposium and concert in Stockholm, Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Systematic Understanding of Music
Today, digitally informed music has reached a point where it has become feasible to detect emotion content in the musical audio stream (sound). When this is applied in real-time to aspects of its response, a new context for the creation, performance and listening to music is established where man and machine can interact in much more meaningful ways than previously. This provides for new and more engaged expressions, giving new horizons for musical artwork.

The purpose of the SUM project is to develop such tools by building on existing work by internationally outstanding scholars in the Nordic countries in digital signal processing, music cognition, emotion expression, and interaction software development. For additional information about the SUM project: http://re-new.org/research/sum/

SUM symposium
Onsdagen den 17 februari 2010 kl 10.00-17.00
A330 (Kompositionsseminariet), Kungliga Musikhögskolan, Valhallavägen 105, Stockholm (T-Bana Stadion)
Lars Graugaard (DK), Anders Friberg (KTH), Marcus Wrangö (KMH)

10.00 Introduktion till SUM / Lars Graugaard
11.00 Känslor i musik / Anders Friberg
12.00 Probabilistic melody maker / Anders Friberg & Lars Graugaard
13.00 Lunch
14.00 Kreativa möjligheter
Systematiskt bruk av känslor i musik / Lars Graugaard
15.00 Demo: Gestiska sensorer / Marcus Wrangö
16.00 Tillämpningar och presentationer
(re-new digital arts festival) / Lars Graugaard
17.00 Slut

Konsert
Onsdag 17 februari, kl 20.00. Fylkingen, Torkel Knutssongatan 2, Stockholm (T-Bana Mariatorget)

Symposiet är gratis, konserten kostar 80 kr (student 60 kr).

Ljudkultur

2010-02-15T18:00:00.000+01:00

Some info in Swedish only about the course Sonic culture - soundscapes and the making of sound at Linköping university.

Ljudkultur - ljudlandskap och skapande av ljud är en fristående kurs (30 hp) vid Institutionen för studier av samhällsutveckling och kultur/Enheten Kultur Samhälle Mediegestaltning på Linköpings universitet, Campus Norrköping. Den ges på både grundläggande och avancerad nivå och startar höstterminen 2010. Lärare är bl.a. Magnus Alexanderson.

Record label list updated

2010-02-07T12:27:00.005+01:00

Added a few labels to the record label list. Additions welcome.

Call for Papers: COMPROVISATIONS - Improvisation Systems in Performing Arts and Technologies

2010-02-06T13:15:00.002+01:00

INTERSYMP 2010
22nd International Conference on Systems Research, Informatics And Cybernetics
August, 2-6, 2010
Markgraf-Ludwig Gymnasium, Hardstrasse 2, Baden-Baden, Germany

Special Focus Symposion (August 5, 2010) on COMPROVISATIONS - Improvisation Systems in Performing Arts and Technologies

Submission details are available as a PDF.

Linux Audio Conference 2010 call for papers, music and workshops

2010-02-06T11:56:00.001+01:00

The conference about Open Source Software for music and audio
May 1-4 2010
Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht (HKU)
Utrecht, The Netherlands
http://lac.linuxaudio.org/2010

Calls are under the tab Participation on the website.

"Sound is Motion" symposium and doctoral thesis defence

2010-02-01T14:30:00.007+01:00

KTH, Stockholm, Sweden, February 11-12

A symposium entitled "Sound is Motion" will be held on February 11, in connection to Kjetil Falkenberg Hansen's doctoral thesis defence on February 12. Both events take place at the Department for Speech, Music and Hearing, KTH, in Stockholm, http://www.speech.kth.se/info/location.html and are open for all, and if you happen to be around Stockholm at the time, you are very welcome to participate.

"Sound is Motion" symposium, February 11, 14:00
Sound is usually the result of actions, such as body gestures or mechanical movements. Therefore sound is closely related to motion. Humans are very sensitive to variations of the acoustical signal in the time-frequency plane, making it possible to discriminate between body gestures even in sound.

In recent years, significant advances have been made in the study and development of techniques for musical motion data analysis and motion capture. In general, body gestures allow expressive control in sound production, and interpretation of gestures enables the extraction of the expressive content in human continuous actions.

In the "Sound is Motion" symposium, six experts will tackle the field of Sound and Motion from different perspectives. The symposium starts at 14:00. Place: Room Fantum, Department for Speech, Music and Hearing, KTH, in Stockholm.

"The acoustics and performance of DJ scratching" PhD defence, February 12, 10:00
Kjetil Falkenberg Hansen will defend his thesis "The acoustics and performance of DJ scratching. Analysis and modeling". This thesis focuses on the analysis and modeling of scratching, in other words, the DJ (disk jockey) practice of using the turntable as a musical instrument. Scratching has developed to become a skillful instrument-playing practice with complex musical output. The impact on popular music culture has been significant, and for many, the DJ set-up of turntables and a mixer is now a natural instrument choice for undertaking a creative music activity. Six papers are included in the thesis, where the first three approach the acoustics and performance of scratching, and the second three approach scratch modeling and the DJ interface.

The defense starts at 10:00. Place: Room F2, Lindstedtsvägen 26, KTH, Stockholm

Via Roberto Bresin

Call for papers: Sound studies konference in Århus, september 2010

2009-12-22T11:20:00.001+01:00

Sound as Art - Sound in History, Sound as Culture - Sound in Theory
Conference on sound studies
University of Aarhus, Denmark
September 23–25, 2010

Call for papers

Today, sound studies provide an important framework for furthering cultural research related to a broad range of historical and contemporary issues. Also, sound studies contribute to the understanding of currents in social and global activity increasingly determined by auditory, sonic, and communicative materiality. At the same time, the exploration of auditivity and auditory cultures raises a series of significant aesthetic, medial, historical, cultural, and theoretical questions.

Cultural changes related to globalization and digital media have questioned traditional paradigms of vision containing notions of visual representation, semiotics, and a hermeneutics based on reading. Such changes suggest an auditive paradigm in which modes of interaction, mobile communications, and spatial and geographic fluidity lead to a renewed sense of orality and listening. In research this new paradigm is establishing itself as the interdisciplinary field of sound studies. It draws on disciplines such as musicology, performance studies, art history, anthropology, cultural studies, urban studies, and histories of technology and media while influencing these disciplines with new modes of reflection on and examination of their respective methodologies and subsequent political effects.

The aim of the conference is to profile contemporary sound studies as an interdisciplinary field of studies and to contribute to the discussion and development of the auditive paradigm in general. Key concepts like 'acoustemology', 'acoustic space' or 'sonic environment' might be reflected upon and developed as well, both at a theoretical level and with regard to specific cultural, medial and aesthetic contexts.

The programme of the conference will consist of keynote lectures, plenary roundtables, thematic workshops and individual presentations. Individual presentations and entire workshops may draw inspiration from the following array of questions:

What is the experiential framework of listening and auditive culture, and how is the world constituted (identity, locality, sociality, culture etc) through auditive practice?
How has musical and technological sound production and perception changed through the last century and how has it contributed to everyday soundscapes, the concert hall, and the media?
What can we know, i.e., what types of knowledge, identity and meaning are made possible through acoustic practice – are there any limits to sound taken as an experiential framework and as cognition?
What perspectives might arise from current studies of auditory modes of relating to space, of appropriating, expressing and designing social environments?
How does sound help define urban environments, and how might issues related to urban planning, architectural design, and noise benefit from a deeper and more complex understanding of sound?
What are the correlations between listening and other sensory modalities, the body, sociality, materiality, technology and media (sound viewed as a cognitive paradigm isolated from actual resonating sound).
How do auditive practices appear to be conventional or normative? How do auditive practices, in conjunction with other sensory modalities, articulate value, aesthetics, ethics and morals in culture?
How do we further the development of academic terminologies for dealing with sound?
How can transgressions of traditional distinctions between sound, music and art be understood in a socio-cultural perspective?
What do the specific aesthetic aspects of sound art seek to achieve in contrast to the predominance of visuality and modes of seeing within the arts?
How is artistic and academic education in sound competence developing?

Proposals for presentations (20/10 mins) or workshops (90 mins) must be submitted to the conference organisers/programme committee by April 1, 2010 as an email attachment (rtf/pdf/doc) to soundstudies@hum.au.dk.

Please include the following information: Paper abstract and title (max. 200 words), name(s), affiliation, e-mail, and technical equipment required (PC/DVD/CD/data projector/over-head projector/etc.).

Notifications of acceptance will be sent no later than May 3, 2010.

Keynote speakers are Dr. Penelope Gouk (University of Manchester), Dr. Jean-Paul Thibaud (CRESSON), and professor Adam Krims (University of Nottingham).

The official language of the conference is English. The conference fee is 1.000 D.Kr/€135. Please contact one of the organisers mentioned below in case you need more information.

The conference is organized by the "National Research Network on Auditive Culture"(http://auditiveculture.ku.dk/), the research project "Audiovisual Culture" (http://www.ak.au.dk/en), and the Nordic Branch of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music.

Hz #14

2009-12-22T11:10:00.002+01:00

Hz #14 December 2009:

Metal and Wind: Bertoia and the Space of Reverie by Michael Filimowicz

"Offering to the Wind, as the Bertoia sound sculpture is now known, offers one possible solution to the problem of soundscape design for the city's places of leisure and reverie...It reverses a certain urban deafness, returning the possibility of silences between sounds, producing a quietude in the midst of the city roar."

Embodiment and Technology: Towards a Utopian Dialectic by Belinda Haikes

"David Rokeby's A Very Nervous System and Steve Mann's Wearable Computer are discussed in this essay as examples of "Utopian quest for technological embodiment... ... that seeks to move beyond the anxiety of new media and to position our culture to examine the space between the ultimate dialectics, that of man and the machine."

Sensory Substitution by judsoN

"There is some debate whether cases of sensory substitution are the results of imaginativeness, psychological effects or neurological (mis-)wiring....We have evidence such substitutions do happen....Whether or not Wagner, Klee or Kandinsky actually had synesthesia, there is a rich history of people equating one type of sensory stimuli for another."

Chong! A Parallel Environment by Joaquin Gasgonia Palencia

"Chong! endeavors to showcase an interfacial encounter between humans and robots, much like human peers meeting for the first time, without the robot having to fulfill a function.... The end purpose of this environmental installation is to give the human a small window into how a robot may perceive humans and how it processes that information."

Artistic Textual and Performative Paths in New Media Correlations: An Interview with Annie Abrahams by Evelin Stermitz

"Evelin Stermitz' interview with net artist Annie Abrahams, whose "works are structured on both digitized hyper and on site realities. She constructs forms of collective writings on the net and reconstructs them into offline perceptions, which leads to creations of net-operas and other web based interventions."

Progressions: Toward a Poetic Improvisation of Listening by Brian Schorn

Brian Schorn's poems here "...are an attempt to create a writing environment parallel to that of musical improvisation...by using the Surrealist technique of automatic writing while listening to a representative number of improvised recordings....Six classifications of improvisation and nine composer/performers were used to generate the writings..."

Hz Net Gallery presents 6 net art works:

Buffalo weekly videos by Alysse Stepanian,

The Natual "High-Times" Sound Shuttle by Rudi Punzo,

Baptize by Aaron Oldenburg,

In His Memory (Starman) by Aaron Higgins,

Keyword Intervention by Owen Mundy and

Radiant Copenhagen by Anders Bojen & Kristoffer Ørum

Some upcoming conferences 2010

2009-12-06T18:08:00.001+01:00

The second International symposium on ambisonics and spherical acoustics will be held on May 6-7, 2010, at IRCAM, Paris. Read the call for participation for information on how to submit papers and demos. The previous conference was held in Austria 2009. Proceedings are available online.

The 7th Electroacoustic music studies conference will take place in Shanghai, June 21-24, 2010. This year's theme is "Teaching electroacoustic music". Read the call for papers for more information. Proceedings from previous conferences are available.

The 7th Sound and music computing conference, Barcelona, July 21-24, 2010, is open for both paper and music contributions. The concert hall has an octophonic system. Earlier proceedings are searchable online.

The 13th International conference on digital audio effects will be held in Graz, Austria, September 6-10, 2010. For more info, see call for papers; links to previous conferences/proceedings are at the main DAFx web site.

Updated December 6, 2009; originally posted November 23, 2009.

New books in EMS' library

2009-11-27T12:26:00.005+01:00

Bailey, Thomas Bey William: Micro-bionic : radical electronic music and sound art in the 21st century
Composers inside electronics : music after David Tudor (Leonardo music journal, vol. 14)
Edström, Olle (ed.): Säg det om toner och därtill i ord : musikforskare berättar om 1900-talets musikliv
Frisk, Henrik: Improvisation, computers and interaction : rethinking human-computer interaction through music (Doctoral studies and research in fine and performing arts ; 6)
Haglund, Magnud (ed.): Musikens plats = The place of music (ArtMonitor : en tidskrift för konstnärlig forskning, no. 7, 2009)
Hansen, Tone (ed.): To be heard is to be seen
Hedfors, Per: Site soundscapes : landscape architecture in the light of sound : sonotope design strategies
Hirst, David: A cognitive framework for the analysis of acousmatic music : analysing Wind chimes by Denis Smalley
Holmes, Thom: Electronic and experimental music : technology, music and culture
Lundsten, Ralph: Happy earthday : lustbara kåserier : verbala dumheter och sinnliga exkursioner från Sommarprogram 1981, 1984, 1989 och 2004
Lundsten, Ralph: En själens vagabond : en personlig levnadshistoria av och om en äventyrare i tid och rum
Margulies, Jon: Ableton Live 8 power! : the comprehensive guide
Banzi, Massimo: Getting started with Arduino
McLean, Priscilla: Hanging off the edge : revelations of a modern troubadour
Miller, Paul D. (DJ Spooky): Rhythm science
Neuberger, Susanne (ed.): Nam June Paik : Exposition of music, electronic television : revisited
Neuhoff, John G. (ed.): Ecological psychoacoustics
Smallwood, Scott: Toward sound : the practice of phonography, noise and free improvisation in the Eastern US
Ternhag, Gunnar: Vad är det jag hör? : analys av musikspelningar
Österling, Fredrik: Komponisterna i Sverige
Östersjö, Stefan: Shut up ’n’ play! : negotiating the musical work (Doctoral studies and research in fine and performing arts ; 5)

The following books have been taken over from the library of our mother organisation Concerts Sweden:

Adorno, Theodor W.: Philosophie der neuen Musik
Bailey, Derek: Improvisation : its nature and practice in music
Bartók, Béla: Béla Bartók essays
Bucht, Gunnar ; Lundahl, Per Olof & Wallner, Bo: Facetter : av och om Karl-Birger Blomdahl
Diagram group, the: Musical instruments of the world : an illustrated encyclopedia
Dibelius, Ulrich: Ligeti : eine Monographie in Essays
Geiringer, Karl: Instruments in the history of Western music
Griffiths, Paul: György Ligeti (The contemporary composers)
György Ligeti : Gesamtverzeichnis der veröffentlichen Werke : Stand Januar 1989 = complete list of the published works : up to January 1989
Harvey, Jonathan: The music of Stockhausen : an introduction
Höjer, Lotta (ed.): Karl-Birger Blomdahl-festival (Konsertnytt Special, november 1990)
Johnson, Robert Sherlaw: Messiaen
Kolleritsch, Otto (ed.): György Ligeti : Personalstil, Avantgardismus, Popularität (Studien zur Wertungsforschung ; 19)
Ligeti, György & Nordwall, Owe: Aventures & Nouvelles aventures : musikalisk-dramatisk handling i fjorton bilder : libretto
Ligeti, György: Den stora makabern : Ligeti
Ligeti, György: From sketches and unpublished scores 1938-56 : from the collection of Ove Nordwall (Publications / issued by the Royal Swedish Academy of Music ; 15 [i.e. 16])
Ligeti, György: György Ligeti in conversation : with Péter Várnai, Josef Häusler, Claude Samuel and himself
Manning, Peter: Electronic and computer music
Marcuse, Sibyl: A survey of musical instruments
Nadel, Myron Howard & Nadel Miller, Constance (ed.): The dance experience : readings in dance appreciation
Nordwall, Ove: György Ligeti : eine Monographie
Nordwall, Ove: Ligeti-dokument : brev, skizzer, partitur, kommentarer, om musikteater, om musikalisk form, verklistor
Nyffeler, Max (ed.): Klaus Huber
Peyser, Joan: Boulez : composer, conductor, enigma
Sabbe, Herman: György Ligeti : Studien zur kompositorischen Phänomenologie (Musik-Konzepte ; 53)
Stacey, Peter F.: Boulez and the modern concept
Straviniskij, Igor: Musikalisk poetik
Wagner, Gottfried: Weill und Brecht : das musikalische Zeittheater

Soundscape: support to health

2009-11-23T16:46:00.007+01:00

I've previously mentioned two Swedish research initiatives on soundscapes and acoustic ecology, Urban Sound Institute and The Sound Environment Centre at Lund University.

There is also another somewhat similiar research programme, Soundscape: support to health (Ljudlanskap för bättre hälsa), which has an associated website with an introduction to acoustics, measurement and perception of noise, focused on health aspects. The introduction is in Swedish only, except for a course in engineering acoustics. An interesting twist is that the text is available in three versions: for curious people (nyfikna), for users (användare), i.e. architects, civil servants etc., and for specialists.

Öra för ljud i SvD

2009-11-23T14:40:00.008+01:00

A post in Swedish about some sound-related articles in the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.

SvD har nyligen haft en liten artikelserie om ljud och musik under rubriken Öra för ljud:

Med sikte på musikens minsta beståndsdelar - Erik Bergqvist om Gunnar Buchts Quid est tonus?
På spaning efter de ljud som flytt - Jesper Olsson om ljudinspelning och minne
Upptäcktsfärd bland oönskade surr och klick - Fredrik Stahlénius om ljudtvätt och brus

Det finns mer information och länkar till äldre artiklar i understrecket-bloggen.

EAM in DDM-online

2009-11-23T12:16:00.002+01:00

One can find quite a few dissertations on electroacoustic music at Doctoral dissertations in musicology-online. The index is searchable by keyword or classification. It is possible to use * as a wildcard, though only at the end of strings. A search for "electro*" yields 53 items, most of them relevant, while a search for items classified as "71ek*", i.e. twentieth century (7) - historical musicology (1) - electronic music (ek), lists 36 dissertations. ISBN:s are given for published works, and dissertations in progress are listed and asterisked. There are also instructions for submission of your own dissertation or topic.

New books in EMS' library

2009-10-04T10:01:00.005+02:00

The following reports have been kindly donated by The Sound Environment Centre at Lund University (thanks to Frans Mossberg!):

Kungliga Musikaliska Akademien: Manifest för en bättre ljudmiljö
Karlsson, Henrik: Lyssnande Lund : förstudie om ett tvärvetenskapligt ljudmiljöcentrum vid Lunds universitet
Buller och hälsa : texter från seminarium den 13 januari 2006 arrangerat av Lyssnande Lund
Förföriska ljud : texter från seminarium den 27 januari 2006 arrangerat av Lyssnande Lund
Operativa ljud : texter från seminarium den 22 september 2006 arrangerat av Lyssnande Lund
Skadliga ljud : texter från seminarium den 20 oktober 2006 arrangerat av Lyssnande Lund
Ljud och inlärning : texter från seminarium den 27 april 2007 arrangerat av Lyssnande Lund
Mossberg, Frans (ed.): Sounds of history : texts from an interdisciplinary symposium held 27 October 2007 arranged by The Sound Environment Centre at Lund University, Sweden
Karlsson, Henrik; Wikström, Owe; Svenbro, Håkan & Geels, Anton: Ljud och tystnad för sinne och själ : texter från seminarium den 28 november 2008 arrangerat av Lyssnande Lund

Other new items:

Johansson, Pär: Elektronmusikens ljudlära (2007, rev. 2009)
Schaeffer, Pierre ; examples sonore de Guy Reibel assisté de Beatriz Ferreyra: Solfège de l’objet sonore
Swedish (hi)stories (World new music magazine no. 19, october 2009)

Hz journal - call for articles and net art

2009-10-04T09:55:00.003+02:00

On-line journal Hz (www.hz-journal.org) is looking for articles on New Media, Net Art, Sound Art and Electro-Acoustic Music. We accept earlier published and unpublished articles in English. Please send your submissions to hz-journal(at)telia.com

Hz is also looking for Net Art works to be included in its virtual gallery (www.hz-journal.org/netg). Please send your URL to hz-journal(at)telia.com

Deadline: 1 November, 2009

Hz is published by the non-profit organization Fylkingen in Stockholm. Established in 1933, Fylkingen has been known for introducing yet-to-be-established art forms throughout its history. Nam June Paik, Stockhausen, Cage, etc. have all been introduced to the Swedish audience through Fylkingen. Its members consist of leading composers, musicians, sound artists, dancers, performance artists and video artists in Sweden. For more information on Fylkingen, please visit http://www.fylkingen.se/about or http://www.hz-journal.org/n4/hultberg.html

Vilken nytta har vi av ljud? - 4 november 2009

2009-09-22T20:11:00.005+02:00

An invitation to a conference, "What use is sound?", of interest to Swedish readers only.

Inbjudan utskickad på BIBLIST, men konferensen verkar vara öppen för alla intresserade.

"Vi i det nybildade nätverket Östgötaljud bjuder in till en dag som syftar till att informera om och diskutera det som idag görs både här i Östergötland och nationellt. Vi vill även blicka framåt och se hur vi tillsammans kan arbeta med ljudet i framtiden.

Nätverket Östgötaljud är en ABM-samverkan i länet.

Målgruppen för denna konferens är arkiv, bibliotek, museer och andra intresserade.

Vi kommer att under dagen diskutera: Vad är ljud? Vem arbetar med att bevara ljud och ljudmiljöer för eftervärlden? Hur gör man för att spara på ljud och kan man återskapa ljud som försvunnit? Hur tar vi idag hand om ljud på våra arkiv, bibliotek och museer och vad kan och vill vi göra? På vilka sätt kan vi tillgängliggöra ljudet och hur kan vi använda det i utställningar och gestaltningar?

Program och anmälan:

http://www.kulturarvostergotland.se/ostgotaljud

Senast 12 oktober vill vi ha din anmälan.

Välkommen!"

3rd International Workshop on Interactive Sonification

2009-09-22T20:06:00.002+02:00

April 7, 2010
KTH, School of Computer Science and Communication, Stockholm, Sweden
http://interactive-sonification.org/ISon2010/

The overall number of attendees will be *strictly limited* (to about 40), and priority will be given to attendees that submit and present novel and interesting work on Interactive Sonification.

It would help us to hear very early if you plan to attend or/and to submit work.

This workshop is intended as a forum for newcomers and all those interested in tightly-closed loop human-computer systems involving sonification. Work in progress is also very welcome, if there are relevant novel ideas, new approaches, techniques or applications to report.

Deadline for abstracts: October, 31 2009

Please see the above website for full details, and the call for papers.

New books in EMS' library

2009-09-19T11:25:00.003+02:00

Mediaröster Stockholm new music 06 : 20 mars 2006
Parergon : tidsskrift for samtidsmusikk. No. 3-4, 2006
Burlin, Toivo: Det imaginära rummet : inspelningspraxis och produktion av konstmusikfonogram i Sverige 1952-1983
Chion, Michel: Film, a sound art
Chion, Michel: The voice in cinema
Collins, Nicolas: Handmade electronic music : the art of hardware hacking (2nd ed.)
Cope, David: Computer models of musical creativity
Dean, Roger T. (ed.): The Oxford handbook of computer music
Donhauser, Peter: Elektrische Klangmaschinen : die Pionierzeit in Deutschland und Österreich
Ekbom, Torsten: En trädgård av ljud : en bok om John Cage och The Cage age
Haglund, Magnus: Åke Hodell
Hall, Donald E.: Musical acoustics
Henriksdotter, Sanna & Ryberg, Linda: Gå över ån : ett konstpedagogiskt pilotprojekt : rapport
High heel sisters (Malin Arnell, Line Skywalker Karlström, Anna Linder & Karianne Stensland): HHS : High heel sisters
Kelly, Caleb: Cracked media : the sound of malfunction
Konstnärsnämnden: Konstnärernas inkomster : en statistisk undersökning av SCB inom alla konstområden 2004-2005
Kreidler, Johannes: Loadbang : programming electronic music in Pure data
Kuljuntasta, Petri: First wave : a microhistory of early Finnish electronic music
Leman, Marc: Embodied music cognition and mediation technology
Lund, Kristina: Rätt att rappa : passion och fostran på Fryshuset
Meyer, Felix & Zimmerman, Heidy (ed.): Edgard Varèse : composer, sound sculptor, visionary
Miller, Paul D. (DJ Spooky) (ed.): Sound unbound : sampling digital music and culture
Mockus, Martha: Sounding out : Pauline Oliveros and lesbian musicality
Norsk teknisk museum: Musikkmaskiner = Music machines
Rudi , Jøran (ed.): Absorpsjon og resonans – lyd og mening = Absorption and resonance - sound and meaning
Rumsey, Francis & McCormick, Tim: Sound and recording
Saunders, James (ed.): The Ashgate research companion to experimental music
Schaub, Mirjam: Janet Cardiff : the walk book
Sethares, William A.: Rhythm and transforms
Tadday, Ulrich (ed.): Klangkunst (Musik-Konzepte, Neue Folge XI/2008, Sonderband)
Utredningen Konstnärerna och trygghetssystemen: Konstnärerna och trygghetssystemen : betänkande
Ystad, Sølvi, Kronland-Martinet, Richard & Jensen, Kristoffer (ed.): Computer music modeling and retrieval : genesis of meaning in sound and music : fourth international symposium (CMMR 2008)

Åke Hodell by Magnus Haglund

2009-09-17T20:05:00.010+02:00

The following rantings is a personal reflexion in Swedish about Magnus Haglund's new book about the Swedish concrete poet and text-sound artist Åke Hodell.

Jag besökte släppfesten för Magnus Haglunds Hodell-biografi i tisdags. Haglund läste texter och samtalade med flera av de personer ur Hodells bekantskapskrets som nämns i boken. Gubbar allihop faktiskt. Nu är det inte så att jag har något särskilt emot gubbar (förutom som representanter för människosläktet i allmänhet naturligtvis, inbiten misantrop som jag är), men det ledde till en, visserligen småmysig, men ändå lite grabbig dunka-varandra-i-ryggen-stämning. Jag anar att Haglund väldigt gärna skulle velat varit med då, på 1960-talet, då det hände riktigt vassa grejer liksom ... men jag unnar honom gärna denna längtan.

Det behöver nästan inte sägas att boken är välkommen. Men den handlar framförallt om den bild Hodell byggt upp av sig själv. Att han använde sitt liv som material, och att vissa händelser och teman ständigt återkommer i hans verk, är välkänt, men detta gäller ju för de flesta konstnärer, visserligen i mer eller mindre hög grad. Ett minst lika intressant ämne för en biografi hade väl varit det vi inte kan få veta om Hodell genom verken. Det skulle kanske inte ge en sannare bild av Hodell, men en annan. Och även om boken snarare är en introduktion till Hodells konstnärsskap än en vetenskaplig biografi, önskar jag att Haglund hade haft en mer kritisk inställning till sitt källmaterial, och inte låtit sig förföras av Hodells egen mytbildning.

Bokens sista kapitel handlar om Hodells position i dagens konstvärld. Det är många som tagit starka intryck av Hodells verk. Jag hör också till dem. Med en lätt överdrift kan man säga att "Mr. Smith in Rhodesia" gjorde mig till tonsättare, och "Skratta Pajazzo" spelade - tillsammans med Eyvind Johnsons "Strändernas svall" - förmodligen en viktig roll för mitt beslut att vapenvägra.

Men intryck behöver inte medföra, och är inte detsamma som, influens. Det sistnämnda måste utgöra en konkret och påvisbar inverkan på den influerades gärning. Det går säkert att hitta ytliga likheter mellan Hodells verk och de som härstammar från den yngre generationen ljudkonstnärer. Men Hodells gärning bars inte upp av poetisk teknik allena, utan av det slags starka etiska och politiska ställningstagande, som jag har svårt att finna i den svenska samtidskonsten.

Och därför finns det, enligt min mening, heller ingen som kan räkna sig som efterföljare till Hodell. Kanske skall vi inte sörja alltför mycket över detta; precis som Hodell vägrade bli en Ekelöf-epigon, är dagens konstnärer naturligtvis i sin fulla rätt att välja sina egna estetiska och moraliska utgångspunkter.

Nedan följer några recensioner från dagspressen. (Boken är förstås redan inköpt till EMS bibliotek och finns till utlån inom några dagar.)

Crister Enander i Helsingborgs dagblad, Ystads allehanda och Tidningen kulturen
Dan Jönsson i Göteborgsposten
Mikael Strömberg i Aftonbladet
Thomas Götselius i Expressen
Sabina Ögren i Borås tidning
Tina Persson i Smålandsposten
Tobias Magnusson i Göteborgs Fria
Johan Jacobsson i Stockholms Fria
Jan Arnald i Dagens Nyheter

ISEA 2010 call for proposals

2009-09-07T08:25:00.001+02:00

ISEA2010 RUHR is the 16th International Symposium on Electronic Art, a major biennial conference and exhibition event for art, media and technology, scheduled for August 2010 in the German Ruhr region (Dortmund, Essen, Duisburg, a. o.).

We invite proposals for conference papers, artist presentations, exhibition projects, live performances, and art projects in public space. All submissions will be evaluated by an international jury; results and invitations are expected by the end of 2009.

Visual artists, musicians, dancers, designers, engineers, software artists, researchers, theorists, media activists, and hybrids of these, working with recent technologies and exploring the artistic, creative and critical potentials of digital and electronic media, should submit their projects or papers online at www.isea2010ruhr.org/submissions by 15 September 2009.

EMS music archive searchable online

2009-08-22T10:01:00.003+02:00

Record label list updated

2009-08-20T21:55:00.004+02:00

I've finally found time to update the record label list. There are about ten more labels, for a total of 52. Additions are of course welcome. Labels must be based in Sweden, and release electronic, electroacoustic, contemporary classical, experimental, free improv and related genres.

Call for papers: EvoMUSART 2010

2009-07-30T18:42:00.005+02:00

EvoMUSART 2010
8th European Workshop on Evolutionary and Biologically Inspired Music, Sound, Art and Design

7-9 April, 2010, Istanbul, Turkey

http://www.evostar.org

INTRODUCTION

EvoMUSART 2010 is the eight workshop of the EvoNet working group on Evolutionary Music and Art. Following the success of previous events and the growth of interest in the field, the main goal of EvoMUSART 2010 is to bring together researchers who are using biologically inspired techniques for artistic tasks, providing the opportunity to promote, present and discuss ongoing work in this area.

The workshop will be held from 7-9 April, 2010 in Istanbul, Turkey as part of the EvoStar event.

Accepted papers will be presented orally at the workshop and included in the EvoWorkshops proceedings, published by Springer Verlag in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science series.

EvoMUSART 2010 important dates are:

Submission deadline: November 4, 2009
Conference: 7-9 April, 2010

TOPICS OF INTEREST

The papers should concern the use of bio-inspired techniques (Evolutionary Computation, Artificial Life, Artificial Neural Networks, Swarm Intelligence, etc.) in the scope of the generation, analysis and interpretation of art, music, design, architecture and other artistic fields. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

- Generation
o Biologically Inspired Design and Art-Making Systems that create drawings, images, animations, sculptures, poetry, text, objects, designs, webpages, buildings, etc.;
o Biologically Inspired Sound-Generators and Music-Systems that create music, aggregate sound, or simulate instruments, voices, effects, etc;
o Robotic Based Evolutionary Art and Music;
o Other related generative techniques;
- Theory
o Computational Aesthetics, Emotional Response, Surprise, Novelty;
o Representation techniques;
o Comparative analysis and classification;
o Validation methodologies;
o New biologically inspired computation models in art, music and design;
- Computer Aided Creativity
o New ways of integrating users into evolutionary computation art and music frameworks;
o Analysis and evaluation of: the artistic potential of biologically inspired art and music; the artistic processes inherent to these approaches; the resulting artifacts;
o Collaborative distributed artificial art environments;
- Automation
o Techniques for automated fitness assignment;
o Systems that exploit biologically inspired computation to analyze artistic objects and artifacts;

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND SUBMISSION DETAILS

Submit your manuscript, at most 10 A4 pages long, in Springer LNCS format no later than November 4, 2009. Formatting instructions available at:

http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-7-72376-0

The papers will be peer reviewed by at least three members of the program committee. Authors will be notified via email on the results of the review by 20 December 2009.

The authors of accepted papers will have to improve their paper on the basis of the reviewers' comments and will be asked to send a camera ready version of their manuscripts, along with text sources and pictures, by 10 January 2010. The accepted papers will appear in the workshop proceedings, published in Springer LNCS Series, which will be available at the workshop.

Further information, including the Online Submission Details, can be found on the following pages:
Evo*2010: http://www.evostar.org
EvoMUSART2010: http://dces.essex.ac.uk/research/evostar/EvoMUSART.htm

IMPORTANT DATES

Submission: 4 November 2009
Workshop: 7-9 April 2009

IRCAM call for projects

2009-06-30T11:12:00.001+02:00

Call for Projects 2010: Musical Research Residency Program

Ircam (Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics and Music) offers a unique experimental environment where composers can expand their musical experience through the concepts found in new technologies. These technologies are developed as a result of challenges posed both by new musical ideas and new domains investigated by scientific teams. At Ircam, this interactive process is called “musical research”.

Ircam is inviting artists to submit projects for the first musical research residency program in 2010. The musical research residency program is open to international artists, regardless of age or nationality, who wish to carry out their musical research using Ircam’s facilities and extensive research environment. Candidates will be nominated through a selection procedure involving international experts, based on research background and musical motivation, as well as the quality of the proposed project through the online call for proposals. Preference is given to new personalities to the Ircam artistic scene. Upon nomination, each candidate will be granted a residency at Ircam during a specific period (three or six months) and in association with a team/project at Ircam. In addition, laureates receive an equivalent of 1200 Euros per month to cover expenses in France.

For the year 2010, we invite projects on (but not limited to) the following research themes:
• Spatial sound composition
• Compositional and high-level control of sound synthesis
• New paradigms for the gestural control of computer music
• Novel compositional approaches to voice processing and/or synthesis
In addition to the proposed themes, we encourage applicants with novel and unexplored research ideas to apply within the “open call” category. We strongly recommend candidates to consult current trends in musical research at Ircam and elsewhere by browsing through Ircam research department websites.

Submission Deadline: July 31, 2009
More Information and submission procedure:
http://www.ircam.fr/875.html?L=1

Organised sound: Call for submissions

2009-06-23T23:09:00.005+02:00

Call for submissions
Organised Sound, Volume 15, Number 3
Issue thematic title: Sound <–> Space: New approaches to multichannel music and audio
Date of Publication: December 2010
Publishers: Cambridge University Press

Issue co-ordinators: Scott Wilson and Jonty Harrison {s.d.wilson.1, d.j.t.harrison}@bham.ac.uk

In recent years the field of multichannel electroacoustic music and audio spatialisation has experienced something of a renaissance. In addition to the development and increased availability of new technologies (higher order ambisonics, vector base amplitude panning, wave field synthesis, various spectral diffusion approaches, etc.) we have seen multichannel presentation of electroacoustic music become standard in a way that it never was in the past. 'Eight channel is the new stereo,' one practitioner is known to have declared. At the bleeding edge of this trend we have seen the extension and development of large-scale multichannel systems for performance and research, such as the ZKM Klangdom, BEAST (Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre), the Sonic Arts Research Centre at Queen's University in Belfast, and the Allosphere at UCSB in California.

Along with the possibilities presented by these techniques and systems come problems and challenges. Issues of accessibility, portability, and practicality arise. Historical problems (e.g. the need to adapt to less than ideal performance spaces, the cost of accessing the space for sufficient preparation and rehearsal time, the sweet spot issue, etc.) remain very much in play.

Issue 15/3 of Organised Sound will explore this growing field of multichannel audio and music in aesthetic and social, as well as technical terms.

Potential subjects include:

1) Aesthetics
- Historically one might roughly divide spatialisation approaches into two broad categories: the virtual (i.e. artificial reality simulation and holophony), and the pragmatic (i.e diffusion and other space and system adaptable and/or specific approaches). What value do these different approaches have in the current context? To what extent are they combinable?
- What are the aesthetic implications of different approaches? Which amongst the possibilities enabled by new systems and technologies are the most 'musically' relevant (in the broadest sense), and are these in any way distinct from those more suited for virtual reality applications?

2) Practicality and Portability
- How can pieces be composed to be adaptable to the growing variety of system configurations (rings of eight with various orientations, domes, spheres, 'horizon' approaches such as WFS, 'acousmoniums' like the GRM, hybrid systems such as BEAST, ad hoc non-symmetrical and/or non-homogenous setups; i.e. sound installations, etc.)?
- Can or should presentation systems be designed with maximum adaptability to existing formats/paradigms (stereo diffusion, quad, 5.1, ring of eight, massively multichannel, etc.) in mind?
- Is a spatial interchange format (e.g. the recent 'SpatDIF' proposals) practical and/or desirable? What are the implications of combining low level (i.e. implementation specific) and high level (i.e. human-meaningful) descriptors in a single format?

3) Techniques and implementations
- What are the current solutions to software control of (especially large-scale) multichannel systems?
- What future developments will be possible and/or desirable?
- What role should performance (in the broadest sense) play in spatialisation, whether for pragmatic or aesthetic reasons?

4) Accessibility
- To what extent do the new large-scale multichannel systems represent a return to the historical accessibility problems of electroacoustic and computer music? Are we seeing a return to the 'institutionalisation' of electroacoustic music and sound art? To what extent (if any) does the availability of relatively inexpensive commodity hardware (powerful computers, MOTU 24I/O interfaces, etc.) help with this problem?

5) Hybridisation
- Historically, different approaches and techniques have exhibited particular strengths and weaknesses, while attracting (sometimes almost religious) communities of advocates, who (perhaps for reasons of technical limitation as much as anything else) made use of these techniques relatively exclusively. Given the current state of the art, what advantages or disadvantages do hybrid approaches present to the user?

As always, submissions related to the theme are encouraged; however, those that fall outside the scope of this theme are always welcome.

Deadline for submissions is 15 January 2010. Submissions may consist of papers, with optional supporting short compositions or excerpts, audio-visual documentation of performances and/or other aspects related to your submission that can be placed onto a DVD and the CUP website for “Organised Sound”. Supporting audio and audio-visual material will be presented as part of the journal's annual DVD-ROM which will appear with issue 15/3 as well on the journal’s website.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 15 January 2010

SUBMISSION FORMAT
Notes for Contributors and further details can be obtained from the inside back cover of published issues of Organised Sound or at the following url:

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayMoreInfo?jid=OSO&type=ifc (and download the pdf)

Properly formatted email submissions and general queries should be sent to: os@dmu.ac.uk, not to the guest editors.

Hard copy of articles and images (only when requested) and other material (e.g., sound and audio-visual files, etc. – normally max. 15’ sound files or 8’ movie files) should be submitted to:

Prof. Leigh Landy
Organised Sound
Clephan Building
De Montfort University
Leicester LE1 9BH, UK.

Editor: Leigh Landy
Associate Editors: Ross Kirk and Richard Orton
Regional Editors: Joel Chadabe, Kenneth Fields, Eduardo Miranda, Jøran Rudi, Barry Truax, Ian Whalley, David Worrall
International Editorial Board: Marc Battier, Hannah Bosma, Alessandro Cipriani, Simon Emmerson, Rajmil Fischman, David Howard, Rosemary Mountain, Tony Myatt, Jean-Claude Risset, Francis Rumsey, Margaret Schedel, Mary Simoni

Architectones II conference 3-5 July 2009

2009-06-23T23:04:00.002+02:00

ARCHITECTONES II (3-5 July 2009)
ROYAL SALTWORKS OF ARC ET SENANS, SOUTH EAST FRANCE

In July 2008, the first edition of Architectones brought together a number of leading artists, architects, curators and theorists for a two-day conference on sound art. The conference addressed topics such as sound and architecture, curating sound and the role of sound in contemporary art via presentations and discussions relating essentially to artistic practice. Architectones II will take an in-depth look at the topic that elicited the most interest among participants - the relationship between sound and architecture. It will do so not from the point of view of practice but by examining the theory and thinking underpinning these practices. The event will consist of a day-long discussion on Saturday 5 July designed to stimulate in-depth exchanges between the speakers and the audience. Each speaker will prepare a short text and five questions that will form the basis for the discussion. These will be posted on the Architectones website in the weeks leading up to the event.

The programme will include a sound walk as well as installations and film screenings on the subject of sound and architecture, taking place on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Speakers/moderators: Pascal Broccolichi (France), Gregoire Chelkoff (CRESSON) France, Seth Cluett (USA), Sabine von Fischer (Switzerland), Raviv Ganchrow (The Netherlands), Rahma Khazam (UK France), Claudia Martinho (PT France), Colin Ripley (Canada), Edwin van der Heide (The Netherlands)

Contact: www.architectones.net

Organised sound - call for submissions

2009-05-05T19:44:00.006+02:00

Volume 15, Number 2
Issue thematic title: Organising Electroacoustic Music
Date of Publication: August 2010
Publishers: Cambridge University Press

Issue co-ordinator: Simon Emmerson (s.emmerson@dmu.ac.uk)

It is not possible to define ‘electroacoustic music’ completely - we include all its many genres with their incompatible descriptors – acousmatic, live electronic, interactive, algorithmic, installation, experimental, glitch, post-laptop, live coding – you name it. The range of possibilities for analysis are equally broad (as we see in Stéphane Roy’s L’analyse des musiques electroacoustiques and Leigh Landy’s Understanding the Art of Sound Organization) and more will appear. The field will remain very open. The following four areas are intended not to constrain but to suggest and provoke ideas.

• Who or what organises electroacoustic music?

It might be the composer, the performer, the listener, a ‘system’ (interactive or automatic, software or hardware) – all are potential participants. They may have different roles and relationships.

• How is the music organised?

You might like to examine the creator’s poietic world of intention and realisation, technique, system, method, approach, ‘language’. Or the relation of the creator to the technology, its use, interface, limitations.

You might like to examine a work on its own as an autonomous entity – the sound world, the organisation of its shapes, forms, relationships, functions, processes.

You might like to examine the listener’s reception of the music. The organisation may be imperceptible (why?) or immanent (how?).

Or the relationship of two or more of these, of course (the ‘intention-reception’ issue).

We also accept that a lack of organisation is, after all, a form of organisation. Also that organisation need not necessarily be of human origin.

• How does performance affect organisation?

The music might be affected by where it is composed or performed: a studio, a venue, the internet, a site.

It might be enhanced or (deliberately?) constrained by things mechanical: the instrument, the human-machine interface. Or the performance forces, the instrumentation, sound projection, venue disposition.

It might depend on audience interaction - how is this organised?

• The cultural, philosophical and aesthetic issues of organisation

You may like to question what are we examining. A ‘work’, a process, a performance? Is it fixed or open?

You may wish to discuss languages and models of thinking, either that have been used or that we need to develop, for analytical work in this field.

You may like to tackle the semantic aspects: how and what do sounds in electroacoustic music ‘mean’?

You might like to examine how the social and ecological dimensions of composition and performance influence organisation of the music.

As always, submissions related to the theme are encouraged; however, those that fall outside the scope of this theme are always welcome.

Deadline for submissions for this issue is 1 October 2009. Submissions may consist of papers, with optional supporting short compositions or excerpts, audio-visual documentation of performances and/or other aspects related to your submission that can be placed onto a DVD and the CUP website for “Organised Sound”. Supporting audio and audio-visual material will be presented as part of the journal's annual DVD-ROM which will appear with issue 15/3 as well on the journal’s website.

---

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 1 October 2009

SUBMISSION FORMAT

Notes for Contributors and further details can be obtained from the inside back cover of published issues of Organised Sound or at the following url:

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayMoreInfo?jid=OSO&type=ifc (and download the pdf)

Properly formatted email submissions and general queries should be sent to: os@dmu.ac.uk (not to the guest editor)

Hard copy of articles and images (only when requested) and other material (e.g., sound and audio-visual files, etc. – normally max. 15’ sound files or 8’ movie files) should be submitted to:

Prof. Leigh Landy
Organised Sound
Clephan Building
De Montfort University
Leicester LE1 9BH, UK.

Editor: Leigh Landy
Associate Editors: Ross Kirk and Richard Orton
Regional Editors: Joel Chadabe, Kenneth Fields, Eduardo Miranda, Jøran Rudi, Barry Truax, Ian Whalley, David Worrall
International Editorial Board: Marc Battier, Hannah Bosma, Alessandro Cipriani, Simon Emmerson, Rajmil Fischman, David Howard, Rosemary Mountain, Tony Myatt, Jean-Claude Risset, Francis Rumsey, Margaret Schedel, Mary Simoni

New books and CDs in EMS' library

2009-05-03T11:14:00.007+02:00

New books

Midsommar med Stockhausen : 19:e elektronmusikfestivalen i Skinnskatteberg 23-25 juni 2000 : före, under och efter
Paletten 1/2009 (special issue on sound art)
Cary, Tristram: Tristram Cary : biographical notes and list of works
Hanson, Sten: Antediluvianska skrifter
Hanson, Sten: Works, oeuvres, Werke, arbeten
Hodell, Åke: Galgenfrist
Karperyd, Andreas och Eek, Staffan: Typography now : the typographic dance project
Kindstrand, Gunilla (red.): Kraftfält : Stiftelsen framtidens kultur 1994-2001
Laaban, Ilmar: Palingarderomb
Lane, Cathy (red.): Playing with words : the spoken word in artistic practice
Laurin, Beth och Millroth, Thomas: Beth Laurin : ett urval verk 1953-2008
Marinetti, Filippo Tommaso: Det futuristiska manifestet eller "Futurismen" : den nyaste litterära skolan
Shapiro, Peter (red.): Modulations : a history of electronic music : throbbing words on sound
Strömberg, Mikael: Ljudbiblioteket

New CDs

Laurin, Beth: 1984

Online tutorials etc.

2009-03-19T07:40:00.014+01:00

I teach an evening class in acoustics and sound synthesis, a part of the EMS two year course in electroacoustic music. I've taught these classes since 1999, and since EMS does not require any formal education for entering the course, the main challenge has always been explaining physical and mathematical concepts in plain language and illustrations. Here are some links to online resources that I've found useful.

Acoustics

Carl Rod Nave's HyperPhysics, especially the Sound and hearing section
Daniel A. Russell's Acoustics and vibration animations for teaching acoustics
David J. Benson's Music: a mathematical offering
The Sound object project book (PDF)

DSP

Mark Dolson's The phase vocoder: a tutorial from CMJ (scanned by Swedish keyboardist Jens Johansson, son of jazz pianist Jan Johansson). Also available in an HTML earlier version
Bores signal processing online classes: Introduction to DSP and Advanced DSP
Stephan Bernsee’s DSP Dimension Signal processing tutorials (FFT/phase vocoder)
Steve Smith's The scientist and engineer's guide to digital signal processing (free online book)
DSPRelated.com, a portal and community for DSP

Sound synthesis

James C. Clark's Advanced programming techniques for modular synthesizers (includes example patches for Clavia Nord Modular)
Øyvind Hammer's Digital lydbehandling (PDF in Norwegian) from Notam

Pd
Although we use Max/MSP and not Pd on the course, there are many similarities between them, so these free books could be useful (via Create Digital Music):

There is also a free manual at Flossmanuals. (Thanks to Jonas Enqvist for the tip!)

Software

Manuel Op de Coul's Scala, a tuning utility hosted by the Huygens-Fokker centre for microtonal music)
Michael Klingbeil's SPEAR, Fourier-based sinusoidal modelling for OS X
Xavier Serra's SMS, spectral modelling synthesis

Updated July 25, 2010

Master's degree in sound art at DI

2009-02-27T08:45:00.004+01:00

EMS and Dramatiska institutet (DI), the Swedish university college of film, radio, television and theatre, offer a two-semester master's programme in sound art (60 credits) for active artists, sound designers, musicians, radio and television professionals etc., starting fall 2009. Last date for application: April, 2. More info in Swedish follows.

Dramatiska institutet
Ljudkonst 60 hp
En ettårig magisterutbildning med start höstterminen 2009.

Utbildningen vänder sig till verksamma inom radio- eller medieområdet, konstnärer, ljuddesigners, ljudtekniker, musiker och andra ljudintresserade som vill utveckla sina uttryckssätt med hjälp av/genom ljudkonst.

Sista ansökningsdag 2 april 2009

Vi undersöker möjligheterna i mötet mellan den experimentella ljudkonsten och berättandet. Vi utforskar också ljudkonstens relation till olika typer av rum, platser och bilder.

Utbildningen drivs i nära samarbete mellan Dramatiska institutet och Elektroakustisk Musik i Sverige (EMS). DI:s starka berättartradition genomsyrar utbildningen och förenas här med EMS tradition av elektronmusik och ljudexperiment.

Temp'óra call for projects

2009-02-21T11:05:00.002+01:00

Temp'óra is issuing a call for projects, period 2010-2011. It is aimed at composers and soloists or ensembles involved mainly in contemporary music, permanently residing in Europe within EU or not.

The performing part of the project may incorporate electroacoustics. The pieces may also be of improvisational character.

The project must consist of an exchange between, at least, three different European countries. From these countries each ensemble will commission a piece from a composer of its own country.

The exchange is in form of a collaboration between these countries, so that each ensemble will play a programme including the new commission in the two or more other countries of the collaboration. The programme may be performed in one concert or consist of a tour. This part of the project takes place between 1st of September 2010 and 31st of December 2011.

Application form must be returned by 30th of June 2009.

About Temp'óra

"Temp'óra aims to encourage a better understanding between the cultures of the member states of the European Union by developing and organizing concerts and other musical events of today's music.

Temp'óra proposes to create a central network to bring together actors and sponsors of written and improvised music of the contemporary European music community. The aim is to promote interaction of musicians and composers, and exchange written, visual or audio documents.

[...]

Temp'óra is intent on promoting all the existing websites, institutions, centres and associations devoted to supporting today’s music."

The Experimental Music Studios of the UIUC celebrates 50th anniversary

2009-02-21T10:19:00.004+01:00

The Experimental Music Studios of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has released an four CD set in celebration of their 50th anniversary. The music is freely available as mp3s.

There is also a paper on the history of the center by Emanuele Battisti: The Experimental Music Studio at the University of Illinois, 1958-68: Environment, People, Activities, and one can find more history-related stuff if one looks around the site.

Lejaren Hiller created and directed the studio during its first ten years. He left in 1968 when he was appointed professor of composition at SUNY at Buffalo, and his archive belongs to the SUNY Music Library. The inventory, together with a brief chronology and bibliography, is compiled by Pei-jung Wu (this resource will be added to the EAM meta-bibliography).

Via Synthopia.

Gramophone Archive

2009-02-21T07:59:00.004+01:00

All issues of Gramophone magazine are now available online in full text (though one has to register for access to the PDF scans). One can search the archive and narrow the results down by decade and year. There are some 1500 results for electronic music and about 200 for concrete music. However, not all of these are reviews. The term electroacoustic music is only used in reviews from 1990 onwards, and 'acousmatic' not at all.

In the very first review of musique concrète, the reviewer, L.S., concludes: "To the intellectually curious, this disc will be of great interest: whether this is what we look forward to as the music of the future is another matter, not [to] be entered into here." The record reviewed is the Pierre Henry/Pierre Schaeffer Ducretet-Thomson DTL93090, containing Bidule en Ut, Schaeffer's 1955 Etudes, Henry's Le Voile d'Orphée and other works.

The overall tone of the review is a mix of condescension and prejudice: Neither Schaeffer nor Henry is counted amongst "real composers", unlike Boulez or Messiaen, despite the fact that Henry studied both with the latter and Nadia Boulanger, and the review begins with the usual science-fiction reference.

Well, at least something has changed for the better; I daresay reviews like this are more unusual today.

Thanks to InternetBrus for the tip.

DAFx 2009 call for papers

2009-02-08T14:29:00.002+01:00

Digital Audio Effects Conference DAFx 2009
http://dafx09.como.polimi.it/

The 2009 edition of the DAFx conference will be held on September 1-4, 2009 in the beautiful city of Como, Italy, at the Conference Area of the Politecnico di Milano's Como Campus. DAFx provides an opportunity for experts and students of audio from all over the world to show their research achievements, present and attend tutorials, and exchange ideas on the most recent developments in the audio world.

Papers are solicited for, but not limited to, the following topics:

- Audio Effects
- Sound Synthesis
- Physical Models and Virtual Musical Instruments
- Virtual Analog Models
- Sound Representation and Sound Modeling
- Time-frequency & Spectral Processing
- Audio Coding
- Audio Analysis and Feature Extraction
- Synthesis, Reproduction and Perception of Spatial Sound
- Perception, Cognition, and Psychoacoustics
- Software and Hardware Implementations
- Audio-Based Music Information Retrieval Systems
- Automatic Transcription and High-level Features
- Space-Time Audio Processing
- Networked Audio and the Internet
- Compositional Issues, Sound Design and Sonic Interaction Design
- Audio in Mobile Applications

Prospective authors are invited to submit full-length papers before April 6, 2009 according to one of the following two papers formats:

- Oral: up to 8 pp. in the Proceedings, 20-min presentation
- Poster: up to 8 pp. in the Proceedings, recommended length 4 pp.

All submissions are subject to peer review. The accepted contributions will be published in the Conference Proceedings, which will be made freely accessible on the conference website.

Important dates

- Full-Paper Submission: April 6, 2009
- Notification of Acceptance: May 22, 2009
- Final Paper Submission: June 19, 2009
- Early-bird registration deadline: July 1, 2009

The event is organized by the Sound and Music Computing Lab of the Politecnico di Milano, Como Campus, and by the Image and Sound Processing Group, with the Help of the Conservatory of Music in Como.

Sound and Music Computing Conference 2009: Call for Music

2009-01-29T20:37:00.002+01:00

The 6th Sound and Music Computing Conference (SMC) is glad to announce an open call for works. This year's SMC will happen in Porto at Casa da Música, Porto's most recent architectural landmark located in the new center of the city.

There will be five concerts at the conference that include a network performance. Three of the concerts will be at Casa da Música and the other two at a venue to be announced.

We particularly encourage submissions of works of electronic music that have a performance aspect to it, such as works for instrument(s) and electronic music, laptop performances, live electronic music, live coding, circuit bending, interactive installations, audio-visual performance, and interactive dance.

The conference concert programme will be selected by curators (Evan Parker, Nicolas Collins, Pauline Oliveros and Robert Rowe) in coordination with the Music Chairs (Carlos Guedes and Pedro Rebelo). The conference will provide a professional ensemble with soloists in the following instruments: Flute, Clarinet, Saxophones, Double Bass, Piano and Percussion.

All submissions must be made through an online system at http://smc2009.smcnetwork.org/. Please note there is a limit of 100MB per submission (please used compressed formats, e.g. mp3, ogg, mp4). If you wish to send larger files you should mail us a CD/DVDs to the following address:

SMC 09 C/O Carlos Guedes
INESC-Porto
Rua Dr. Roberto Frias 378
4200-465 Porto
Portugal

Call for Student works
The 6th Sound and Music Computing Conference is also glad to announce a call for student works. Undergraduate and Postgraduate students from all European Schools are encouraged to submit works, following the guidelines proposed in the main call for music. When submitting the works for the student call, you have to submit a proof of enrollment at a European School or University.

Important dates for both submissions:
Submission deadline: April 17
Notification of acceptance: May 15

All questions should be addressed to Carlos Guedes cguedes[at]inescporto[dot]pt or to Pedro Rebelo p[dot]rebelo[at]qub[dot]ac[dot]uk.

New books in EMS' library

2009-01-27T10:07:00.004+01:00

Baalman, Marije: On wave-field synthesis and electro-acoustic music : with a particular focus on the reproduction of arbitrarily shaped sound sources
Edgerton, Michael Edward: The 21st-century voice : contemporary and traditional extra-normal voice
Engström, Andreas & Staneviciute, Ruta (ed.): Contemporary lithuaninan music (World new music magazine, no. 18, oktober 2008)
Kronland-Martinet, Richard, Ystad, Sølvi & Jensen, Kristoffer (ed.): Computer music modeling and retrieval : sense of sounds : fourth international symposium (CMMR 2007)
Larsén, Carlhåkan: Lars-Erik Larsson
Rikskonserter i tiden : enkät till Rikskonserters arrangörer och samarbetspartner utskickad 16 maj 2008 : standardrapport 2008-06-02
Swedish music past and present

The Tone Generation

2009-01-23T21:08:00.006+01:00

The tone generation is a series of radio programmes on electroacoustic music etc. by Ian Helliwell. It's available as a podcast.

Thanks to improviser/composer Johannes Bergmark for the tip - although he won't read this note, because he hates blogs and all that other stuff some of you are addicted to ;-)

Call for participation: FTM Workshop at BEK

2009-01-23T19:49:00.004+01:00

In March BEK will be hosting a one-week workshop providing an introduction to the Ircam libraries FTM, MnM, Gabor and MnM. This one-week workshop will look into the basics and the advanced use of the FTM&Co extensions for Max/MSP for interactive real-time musical and artistic applications.

The basic idea of FTM is to extend the data types exchanged between the objects in a Max/MSP patch by complex data structures such as matrices, sequences, dictionaries, break point functions, tuples and whatever might seem helpful for the processing of music, sound and motion capture data. It also comprises visualization and editor components, and operators (expressions and externals) on these data structures, together with file import/export (SDIF, MIDI, ...) operators.

As examples of applications in the areas of sound analysis, transformation and synthesis, gesture following, and manipulation of musical scores, we will look at the parts and packages of FTM that allow arbitrary-rate signal processing (Gabor), matrix operations, statistics, machine learning (MnM), corpus-based synthesis (CataRT), sound description data exchange (SDIF), and Jitter support. The presented concepts will be tried and confirmed by applying them to programming exercises of real-time musical applications, and free experimentation.

The workshop is led by Diemo Schwarz.

BIOGRAPHY
Diemo Schwarz is a researcher--developer in real-time applications of computers to music with the aim of improving musical interaction, notably sound analysis--synthesis, and interactive corpus-based concatenative synthesis.

Since 1997 at Ircam (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique-Musique) in Paris, France, he combined his studies of computer science and computational linguistics at the University of Stuttgart, Germany, with his interest in music, being an active performer and musician. He holds a PhD in computer science applied to music from the University of Paris, awarded in 2004 for the development of a new method of concatenative musical sound synthesis by unit selection from a large database. This work is continued in the CataRT application for real-time interactive corpus-based concatenative synthesis within Ircam's Real-Time Music Interaction (IMTR) team.

PRACTICAL INFO
The workshop takes place at BEK, Bergen, Norway, March 9-13 2009, and ends with a live event/concert at Landmark on the evening of Friday March 13, featuring Diemo Schwarz, Vicotria Johnson (electric violin) and the South-African sound artist James Webb.

Participation: Please sent a brief e-mail providing motivation and bio to bek[AT]bek[DOT]no by February 5 2009. Participation is free, but participants are expected to cover travel and stay themselves. BEK might be able to help arranging hotel at reduced rate for participants. If this is of intererest, please state so when appliying to participate.

Participants are expected to have prior knowledge of Max.

Links:

http://www.bek.no/

http://imtr.ircam.fr/
http://ftm.ircam.fr/
http://ftm.ircam.fr/index.php/Gabor
http://ftm.ircam.fr/index.php/MnM
http://imtr.ircam.fr/index.php/CataRT

http://recherche.ircam.fr/equipes/analyse-synthese/schwarz/
http://recherche.ircam.fr/equipes/analyse-synthese/schwarz/mtbf/

Call for participation, sound designs, posters, demos: Sonic Interaction Design Workshop

2009-01-23T19:42:00.004+01:00

Sonic Interaction Design and its relation to Film and Theatre sound design

SID Workshop at the University of York

Date: 2 April 2009 (followed by SID Management Committee on 3 April 2009)

Registration to the Workshop:
Please send an email by the 15 March 2009 with the subject line Registration York SID Workshop at sp148@york.ac.uk

Introduction
The discipline of Sonic Interaction Design (SID) investigates ways of conveying information, data and object characteristics through sound in interactive contexts. This field of research has become increasingly important and urgent as the technology available has become more powerful and mobile due to the process of miniaturization. Research regarding SID is relatively new, however, the practice of designing sounds to accompany, represent or evoke actions and objects has a longer history since Sound Designers have been creating new sounds for objects in Theatre and Film for many, many years. This knowledge and practical experience is the logical starting point for the new research field of SID.
The aim of this workshop is to bring together practitioners in the fields of Film and Theatre and researchers in Sonic Interaction Design to discuss and exchange knowledge and practice in the field. This is a rare opportunity for a highly interdisciplinary meeting of people who usually work in different contexts, but who are interested in similar issues. We hope that this meeting will stimulate discussion and produce fruitful collaborations.

Workshop Invited Speakers
Prof Mary Luckhurst, Department of Theatre, Film and TV, The University of York
Daniel Hug, Vertiefungsrichtung Interactiondesign, Interaction Design Program | Game Design Program, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Zurich
Annabelle Pangborn, Head of Editing, Sound and Music, National Film and TV School (UK)

Others to be confirmed

Call for Sound Designs

Experimenting with Sonic Interaction Design
A difficult question in Sonic Interaction Design is to identify ways in which design ideas can be sketched, tested, represented and discussed. One possibility is to set a scene or context in which a person interacts with objects. For this scene, a variety of sounds may be appropriate although, this will depend on the particular interactive experience the designer is attempting to create via sound for the person interacting with the objects. Only the people interacting directly with the objects (and perhaps external observers) can then tell the designer if their experience effectively related to the initial intentions of the designer communicated via the sounds.

Following this idea, in this workshop, we have set a small theatrical scene, involving interactions with sounding objects, which is open to different interpretations and performances, and we set out to perform it with different sets of sounds. The designers will have a context, objects and a setting for which to create appropriate sounds, the actor will respond and react to the sounds (and therefore the objects) as a person could do when using those objects in a real situation and finally the audience will be able to observe the scene and then discuss how well the sounds have communicated the intended experience. In this workshop, we will explore this “theatrical” representation of sonic interaction designs with a twofold aim:

- To discuss the effectiveness of the sonic interaction designs proposed in light of the original designer’s intentions and the feedback produced by the actors and the audience;

- To evaluate the advantages and limitations of this “theatrical” method as a tool for testing and evaluating sonic interaction designs.

We invite submissions of originally designed sounds (in .wav or .aiff format) for the actions and objects of the following theatrical scene (download scene text ).

The sound files should be accompanied by:

1) a document clearly stating which sound file corresponds to which action/object in the scene;

2) a second document which should report briefly the sound designer’s interpretation and setting (time and place) of the scene, the designer’s intentions for the design of each sound and the technical strategies used to design each sound.

Actors will perform the scene with the selected sound designs on the day of the workshop. The actors will rehearse the scene a few days in advance but only knowing the setting (time and place) decided by the sound designer for the scene. The performance of the scene will depend upon the response from the actors to the sounds proposed for the scene. The actors will then prepare a document reporting their understanding of the sounds.

After the performance, during the workshop, audience, actors and designers will be given some time to discuss how successfully the sounds were at communicating the initial designer’s intentions, which will be revealed to both the actors (interacting directly with the objects) and the audience (observers of the interaction).

A final discussion will draw conclusions on this “theatrical” method of testing and evaluating sonic interaction designs.

Submission details
Format: see details above.
Submission deadline: 9 February 2009
Acceptance notification: 28 February 2009
Submission of sound files and documents via http://www.mediafire.com/ and email to sp148@york.ac.uk

Call for Posters/Demos
We invite demos and poster presentations on the subject of Sonic Interaction Design that are also of interest in the contexts of theatre, or more generally the performing arts, and cinema.

Submission details
Format: an abstract of max 500 words
Submission deadline: 31 January 2009
Acceptance notification: 28 February 2009
Email submission to: sp148@york.ac.uk

Record label list updated

2009-01-17T20:57:00.003+01:00

I've updated, reformatted and translated the Swedish record label list into English.

(Yes, I'm fond of lists - aren't we all? I remember that Umberto Eco once wrote - in an essay on Joyce - that lists were very important to Middle Age thinkers, but that we also can find them in contemporary art.)

EAM meta-bibliography

2009-01-17T11:05:00.002+01:00

I've extended and moved the bibliography to here, since it was a bit difficult to read in blog format.

(The EAM meta-bibliography is a bibliography of electroacoustic music bibliographies. It is a spin-off from my master's thesis in library and information science, and covers websites, books and journal articles that list items of interest to EAM composers and researchers.)

Ralph Lundstens arkiv

2009-01-13T19:51:00.004+01:00

Ralph Lundsten donerade för ett par år sedan sitt arkiv till Musikmuseet. Eftersom han nyligen fått utmärkelsen Illis quorum, har Musikbiblioteket valt att göra föremålet till höger till januari månads raritet.

Hz #13

2009-01-06T14:11:00.003+01:00

Hz #13 presents:

[ARTICLES]

"Program" System of Digital Art:"BOOM! Fast and Frozen Permutation" – Taiwan-Australia New Media Art Exhibition
by Yu-Chuan Tseng
Yu-Chuan Tseng reports on Taiwan-Australia New Media Art Exhibition from the perspective: "An important element of digital computer technology ... has digital art features of aesthetic concepts and behavioral structure....'program' is an important factor in constructing the work."

Games: The Art of Making, Bending, and Breaking Rules
by Andrew Yashar Ames
"In interactive art, the observer and the work are constructed by rules that can be bent or broken, but cannot be absent." Andrew Y. Ames examines "Game-based art... [with] implied and explicit rules that artists expose and exploit for aesthetic and ideological purposes."

The Miracles of Feedback
by Mario van Horrik
"This paper deals with my fascination for acoustic feedback... I want to express my doubts, theories, and questions, as well as our motives and enthusiasm for using this medium." Sound artist Mario van Horrik explains his involvement over two decades with acoustic feedback experiments.

Hz vs Church
by Novi_sad
Sound artist/composer Novi_sad's project "'Hz vs Church' aims to use Churches (or other big sized public buildings) as post loudspeakers in order to create, unfold and play live various sounds which appear in the 'aural surface' by using and manipulating in real time different kinds of frequencies."

We Are Not Alone
by Salvatore Iaconesi and Oriana Persico
"Network and information technologies, with a mutagen leap, directly connect the mind of the human being to hyper-contents and to hyper-contexts, creating perspectives that are totally new." Iaconesi/Persico on their projects which emerge as one of the possibilities/directions network technology brings forward.

Intimate Transactions: Close Encounters of Another Kind
by Tony Fry
"Crucially, the interactive intent of the work was to create a means to reflect upon a particular kind of experience – the experience of our being relationally connected as a collective body." Writer/theorist Tony Fry on Keith Armstrong(creative director)'s "Intimate Transactions," and its link to Ecosophy.

[NET ART]

Pollen Soup
by Pierre Proske

Sharedscapes - Points of View on Landscapes
by Grégoire Zabé

Cityscapes
by Myron Turner

Passivitate Imunitass (Activista)
by Poderiu

88 Constellations for Wittgenstein (To Be Played with the Left Hand)
by David Clark

-----------

Hz is an on-line journal published by the non-profit art organization Fylkingen in Stockholm. Established in 1933, Fylkingen is the oldest forum for experimental music and intermedia art in Sweden. Throughout its history Fylkingen has been known to be a driving force in the Swedish art scene to introduce and promote yet-to-be-established art forms, the examples of which include Bartok, John Cage, Nam June Paik, Electro-Acoustic Music as well as Stelarc in recent years. Our members are leading composers, musicians, dancers, performance artists and visual artists in Sweden. For more information on Fylkingen, please visit http://www.hz-journal.org/n4/hultberg.html.

Sachiko Hayashi/Hz

Sonic experience igen

2008-12-17T18:55:00.008+01:00

Nu har nya Nutida Musik kommit ut, och med den min recension av Sonic Experience. Det var ett svårt verk att recensera, eftersom det griper över så många ämnen, men jag är hyfsat nöjd, även om jag var tvungen att avlägsna en del avsnitt p.g.a. plastbrits (som Andreas Engström brukar ligga på). Möjligen känns texten lite styltig, då en del överledande avsnitt har försvunnit, men det kan jag leva med.

I bloggen har jag ju tidigare nämnt CRESSON:s forskning både här och där, men kompletterar med ytterligare några länkar:

CRESSON:s förklaringar av och ljudexempel till några av effekterna (på franska)
Per Hedfors: Site soundscapes : landscape architecture in the light of sound, doktorsavhandling från Lantbruksuniversitet som kortfattat berör och kritiserar CRESSON:s forskning
Margareta Zetterblom: Textile sound design, licentiatavhandling från Chalmers som använder CRESSON:s och Schaeffers teorier
Sharawadji, översättaren David Paquettes sajt (sharawadji är en av de mer esoteriska ljudeffekterna i Sonic Experience)

Diverse länkar

2008-12-07T09:41:00.005+01:00

Empirical Musicology Review är en musikvetenskaplig nättidskrift. Allt material finns fritt tillgängligt i fulltext.

The Synthi är en sajt om EMS Synthi-serie. Där finns även ett forum. (Detta tips kom från Synthopia, en sajt med nyheter om syntar, program och elektronisk musik. Synthopia har lite fler och kortare artiklar än Create Digital Music, och tyvärr också en grabbigare ton, i alla fall ibland.)

Skivbolagslistan är uppdaterad med:

Bendi. Varierande utbud - bl.a. Datahysteri

Börft records: Börft - Ufo Mongo - Djuring Phonogram (Börft distribuerar även många andra märken, bl.a. Konduktör Rekords (En Halvkokt i Folie m.fl.)). Elektroniskt, experimentellt, noise, synthpop etc. - Alvars orkester, Enhänta bödlar, Frak, Njurmännen

Nya böcker och CD i EMS bibliotek

2008-12-03T08:13:00.002+01:00

Nya böcker:

Brunson, Bill: Pejling : musikaliska spår i nordiskt 80-tal : Fylkingen 8-12 september 1987
Rudi, Jøran: Stockhausen : en pioner i Utopia
Björk, Lars & Lilja, Fredrik: Att bevara : en handledning för bibliotek
Gram, Magdalena: Bibliotek och arkitektur : byggnader, rum, samlingar

Nygamla CD från arkivet (urval):

Bayle, François: Motion-emotion, Les couleurs de la nuit : Acousmonium GRM dirigé par François Bayle
CDCM computer music series, vol. 1-8
Chowning, John: John Chowning
Computer music currents 2, 5-6
Henry, Pierre: Messe de Liverpool, Pierres réflèchies
Hiller, Lejaren: Computer music retrospective (1957-1985)
Obst, Michael: Crystal world
Parmegiani, Bernard: La création du monde
Wishart, Trevor: The Vox cycle

Lite nyheter om EMS bibliotek

2008-12-02T12:17:00.004+01:00

Det var längesedan jag skrev i bloggen, men det betyder inte att det inte händer något i EMS bibliotek! Bl.a. överför vi en hel del CD från bandarkivet till biblioteket för att skivorna skall bli mer tillgängliga för er användare. Det rör sig framförallt om utländsk EAM/ljudkonst och modern/samtida instrumentalmusik.

I samband med ombyggnaden av övervåningen kommer biblioteket dessutom att få mer hyllutrymme, vilket betyder att vi t.ex. kan ställa fram fler av våra tidskrifter.

Jag håller också på att utveckla en ny klassifikation och hylluppställning för böckerna, vilket förhoppningsvis kommer att göra det lättare att hitta i biblioteket, men det tar nog några månader innan det nya systemet är infört.

Vidare finns EMS bibliotek nu representerat på HISS - Humaniora i StorStockholm, där man kan hitta de flesta av de humanistiskt inriktade biblioteken i Stockholmstrakten.

Hz: Call for Articles and Net Art

2008-11-02T12:57:00.004+01:00

On-line journal Hz is looking for articles on New Media, Net Art, Sound Art and Electro-Acoustic Music. We accept earlier published and unpublished articles in English. Please send your submissions to hz-journal@telia.com

Hz is also looking for Net Art works to be included in its virtual gallery. Please send your URL to hz-journal@telia.com

Deadline: 25 November, 2008

Hz is published by the non-profit organization Fylkingen in Stockholm. Established in 1933, Fylkingen has been known for introducing yet-to-be-established art forms throughout its history. Nam June Paik, Stockhausen, Cage, etc. have all been introduced to the Swedish audience through Fylkingen. Its members consist of leading composers, musicians, dancers, performance artists and video artists in Sweden. For more information on Fylkingen, please visit http://www.fylkingen.se/about or http://www.hz-journal.org/n4/hultberg.html.

[From Sachiko Hayashi]

Seminarier på EMS och KMH under hösten

2008-10-28T20:07:00.007+01:00

Onsdagen den 29 oktober kl. 15:00 på KMH: Manuel Rocha Iturbide presenterar sitt eget arbete och elektroakustisk musik från Mexiko.

Tisdagen den 4 november kl.18:30 på EMS: Pär Frid - tonsättarporträtt och kreativa möjligheter med Ableton Live.

Fredagen den 7 november kl. 13:30-16:30 på KMH (Nya Salen): Gästföreläsning med den spanske ljudkonstnären Francisco López i samband med Fylkingens 75-årsjubileum.

Fredagen den 21 november kl. 13:00 på KMH: François Bayle.

Torsdagen den 27 november kl. 17:00 på EMS: Jenny Sunesson - årets Hodellstipendiat.

Torsdagen den 11 december kl. 18:30 på EMS: Steina Vasulka - intermediapionjär och grundare till legendariska the Kitchen i N.Y. I samarbete med IASPIS.

Nya böcker i EMS bibliotek

2008-09-23T09:36:00.002+02:00

Biblis : kvartalstidskrift för bokvänner, no. 35 (innehåller artiklar om Åke Hodell och Firework Editions)
Rauschenberg and Sweden : essays, documents, comments (Konsthistorisk tidskrift = Journal of art history, vol. 76, no. 1-2)
Augoyard, Jean-François: Step by step : everyday walks in a french urban housing project
Bayle, François & Thomas, Jean-Christophe: Diabolus in musica
Bernstein, David W. (red.): The San Francisco tape music center : 1960s counterculture and the avant-garde
Chion, Michel (red.): François Bayle : parcours d’un compositeur
Hedfors, Per: Site soundscapes : landscape architecture in the light of sound
Lyon, Marianne & Teruggi, Daniel (red.): Bernard Parmegiani : portraits polychromes
Paquette, David: Describing the contemporary sound environment : an analysis of three approaches, their synthesis, and a case study of Commercial Drive, Vancouver, BC
Polotti, Pietro & Rocchesso, Davide (red.): Sound to sense – sense to sound : a state of the art in sound and music computing
Puckette, Miller: The theory and technique of electronic music
Stocker, Gerfried & Schöpf, Christine (red.): A new cultural economy : the limits of intellectual property = wenn Eigentum an seine Grenzen stösst
Teruggi, Daniel (red.): François Bayle : portraits polychromes
Teruggi, Daniel (red.): Max Mathews : portraits polychromes
Théberge, Paul: Any sound you can imagine : making music/consuming technology

Skivbolagslistan uppdaterad

2008-09-19T18:58:00.004+02:00

Skivbolagslistan är uppdaterad med:

Bombax bombax. Experimentell musik och ljud - Anders Dahl, Skogen, Unforgettable H2O

För den som tycker det är lite gammeldags med skivor finns ju t.ex. Tonsättarradions nya podcast. Fler bolag och webbradiostationer, men inom andra genrer, kan hittas på Flowchannel, en sajt som startats av den gamle EMS-användaren Carl Grinde.