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*BCMCR Research Seminar: Popular Music Studies – Creativity and the digital 1600-1730 Wednesday 5 October 2016 P424, Parkside, Birmingham City University Free registration at this **link* <https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/popular-music-studies-creativity-and-the-digital-tickets-27556812167> *Dr. Rob Strachan (University of Liverpool) - **Sonic Technologies: Popular Music, Creativity and Digital Culture* From composition, recording and production to distribution, communication and promotion, digital technologies now play a central part in how we listen, how music is commoditized and what creative individuals do. Robert Strachan’s forthcoming monograph *Sonic Technologies* examines these significant developments by focusing upon how digital recording and production technologies have had a transformative effect upon musical creativity. Taking in a broad range of digitally produced music, from globally successful pop through to electronic dance music and more experimental forms, it argues that recent developments in computer technologies and digital culture have been central in profound transformations in the creative practices, aesthetics and political economies of popular music. The presentation will outline some of the key areas of the book with a specific focus on the way in which Digital Audio Workstations have changed the way in which mainstream pop music is written and recorded, and how the structures of their virtual environments have led to a restructuring of musical thought and creative action. *Sam Cleeve (BCU) - Agency and Immersion in New Music Media* This paper contemplates the changing role of participation, interaction, and immersion in music production and consumption. Drawing heavily on the concept of the ‘post-digital’, and using a range of examples including virtual reality and generative music applications, it presents a reexamination of the role of the digital in such contexts: while it remains an important mechanism for production and distribution, it has also begun to play an active role in mediating both creativity and aesthetic experience. By interrogating a set of emerging technologies and their applications, this paper seeks to unveil a new more human, more intuitive and more tactile sense of the digital in music – one that runs counter to a conventional wisdom which denigrates it as cold and unfeeling. *About the speakers: Dr. Rob Strachan* is a lecturer based in the School of Music at the University of Liverpool. He has published numerous articles on a variety of aspects of popular music culture including DIY music cultures, electronic music and creativity, the history of British black music and music and audiovisual media (such as music video and documentary). He is co-editor of *The Beat Goes On: Liverpool, Popular Music and the Changing City* (Liverpool University Press, 2010). He is commissioning editor of the journal *Popular Music History* which is published by Equinox press. Rob is also an active musician and sound artist. *Sam Cleeve* is a doctoral candidate at Birmingham City University. His current research interrogates emerging media technologies such as virtual reality and spatialised audio as modalities of musical immersion and engagement; previous work on the phenomenology of musical immersion has been published by Perspectives of New Music. He holds degrees in Musicology from the University of Oxford (MSt) and the University of Birmingham (BMus). For more information, see: http://twitter.com/sam_cleeve http://bcu.academia.edu/SamCleeve *BCMCR Research Seminar: Popular Music Studies – Methodological conundrums 1600-1730 Wednesday 12 October 2016 P424, Parkside, Birmingham City University Free registration at this** link* <https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/popular-music-studies-methodological-conundrums-tickets-27511868740> * Full abstracts at this** link * <http://www.bcmcr.org/research-events/popular-music-studies-methodological-conundrums-of-researching-subcultures/> *Dr. Fiorella Montiero, Keele University - ‘Ethnomusicology of the hegemonic’ *Anthropology, sociology and musicology started out as disciplines studying the ‘noble savages’ or ‘primitives’. In 1972 anthropologist Laura Nader encouraged scholars to depart from this focus and “study up”, that is to study people and institutions with power, influence, wealth and authority in their communities. However, there continues to be an expectation for studies of inequality and racism to examine only one side of the social spectrum: the marginal. “Studying up” at home among the powerful and influential, particularly without belonging to these elite spaces, entails challenges including: How do I access those circles? Do ethnographic rules apply unchanged when studying the upper classes? How can I as an ethnomusicologist balance scholarly obligations towards elite collaborators with obligations towards those whose lives are profoundly impacted by upper class agencies? This presentation will explore the ethnographic methodological dilemmas, mistakes/successes, approaches, and strategies of studying up as a Peruvian in Peru. *Roy Wallace, University of Northampton - Documenting musically influenced subcultures *In my presentation I will outline some of the PhD research I have generated as a documentary practitioner as my interest focuses on various subcultures and the musical influences which underpin their philosophies. I will outline and explore some of the key issues involved in DIY or ‘amateur’ approaches to documentary work in comparison to some of the ‘professional’ work I have undertaken for the BBC and Channel Four Television. In my recent research work I have been exploring the immediacy of internet streaming and the historiographies of subcultures with a particular emphasis on the Anarcho-punk scene, however I am currently working on a project with punk legends the Buzzcocks which is due for release 2017 as part of the forty-year celebration of Punk in the UK. *About the speakers: Dr. Fiorella Montero-Diaz *is an ethnomusicologist, sound engineer and educator. She is currently a Lecturer in Music at Keele University and the Administrator and Archivist of the British Forum for Ethnomusicology. Her research explores music hybridity, race, class, the elites and social conflict in contemporary Lima-Peru. *Roy Wallace* is a Senior Lecturer in Media Production at the University of Northampton with a background as musician, art practitioner and tour manager for various artists. Examples of his work can be accessed at: *http://www.northampton.ac.uk/news/art-of-punk-conference-2016/ <http://www.northampton.ac.uk/news/art-of-punk-conference-2016/>http://www.punkscholars.net <http://www.punkscholars.net/> *(punkumentaries) www.trans-states.org www.uontv.uk * BCMCR Research Seminar: Popular Music Studies – Gender and popular music 1600-1730 Wednesday 26 October 2016 P424, Parkside, Birmingham City University Free registration at this **link* <https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/popular-music-studies-gender-and-popular-music-tickets-27429748115> * Jenny McAlone (Lancaster University) - Androgyny in Kate Bush's Aerial *In popular music studies androgyny is frequently used to describe the fusion of male and female characteristics. But what does it mean to refer to a performance as androgynous and how might this be musically articulated? The sonic landscape created by Kate Bush in her album Aerial presents an opportunity to explore the meaning of androgyny in relation to creative practice and articulation of androgynous subjects. Re-engaging androgyny allows the development of a conceptual framework through which androgyny may be reformulated, highlighting its potential use in critically examining and revealing the significance of gender and subjectivity in popular music. *Dr Lisa Palmer (BCU) - Between Lovers Rock and a Hard Place* Lovers rock music is a distinctive form of ‘romantic’ reggae performed in the British reggae scene where the cultural politics of blackness, the erotic, love and decoloniality converge within the discursive acoustic soundscapes of the blues party and pirate radio. Lovers’ rock emerged in the mid-1970s against the backdrop of tumultuous economic industrial disputes and successive urban uprisings in Britain. Lovers’ rock was an integral component of the reggae music landscape of that period. Nevertheless, in historical and cultural analyses of reggae cultures, lovers rock has a fleeting if not invisible presence and has often been obscured by the masculinised focus on its more raucous relatives, namely ‘conscious’ roots reggae and ragga ‘slackness’. This talk will explicate lovers’ rock as a distinctly Black political project in Britain that has been largely overlooked as an important genre of popular culture. *About the speakers:* *Jenny McAlone* completed a BA (Hons) and MLitt degree in Music at the International Centre for Music Studies at Newcastle University focussing on popular music and feminist theory. She is currently working on my PhD thesis - a study of androgyny in Kate Bush's album Aerial - at Lancaster University. *Dr. Lisa Palmer* is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Birmingham City University and co-editor of the book Blackness in Britain <https://www.routledge.com/Blackness-in-Britain/Andrews-Palmer/p/book/9781138840638>. Her chapter, ‘Men Cry Too – Black Masculinities and the Feminisation of Lover’s Rock <https://www.routledge.com/Black-Popular-Music-in-Britain-Since-1945/Stratton-Zuberi/p/book/9781409469131>’ is published in *Black Popular Music in Britain Since 1945*. She has also published* '‘‘LADIES A YOUR TIME NOW!’ Erotic politics, lovers' rock and resistance in the UK' <http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17528631.2011.583454>* which discusses the gendering of lovers' rock by suggesting that the genre was part of a much broader and complex political expression of love and rebellion amongst Caribbean communities in Britain. For more information, please contact [log in to unmask] -------------------------------------------------------- MeCCSA mailing list -------------------------------------------------------- To manage your subscription or unsubscribe from the MECCSA list, please visit: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=MECCSA&A=1 ------------------------------------------------------- MeCCSA is the subject association for the field of media, communication and cultural studies in UK Higher Education. This mailing list is a free service and is not restricted to members. It is an unmoderated list and content reflect the views of those who post to the list and not of MeCCSA as an organisation. MeCCSA recommends that the list be used only for posting of information (for example about events, publications, conferences, lectures) of interest to members or to promote discussion of current issues of wide general interest in the field. 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