Category Archives: Research

City Students at the 3rd Westminster-Goldsmiths Symposium for Student Research in Popular Music

By Rachel Cunniffe, MA Music Student

On Friday 20^th May, fellow MA student Michael Alloway and I attended the 3rd Westminster-Goldsmiths Symposium for Student Research in Popular Music. Located at the University of Westminster’s Marylebone Campus, the event was hosted by Chris Kennett (Westminster) and Tom Perchard (Goldsmiths, University of London). The day comprised a series of presentations from both Masters and PhD students, including City University’s Steve Wilford, and also featured a fascinating talk by Anthony Farsides, Senior Lecturer at the University of Westminster. It was extremely interesting to hear a selection of forthcoming research in the field of popular music studies.

The opening session focused on ‘Industry and Mediation’ and included presentations on the mediation between managers and emerging popular musicians (Olivia Gable, Open University), the relationship between the two record labels, Mute and Some Bizarre (Leon Clowes, Goldsmiths) and a history of the ‘Golden Age’ of the Columbian recording industry (Lucas Mateo Guingue Valencia, Westminster). The first session was concluded by Anthony Farsides, who presented his research on pop stars and brand patronage. Using recent figures as evidence, he noted the ways in which the contemporary music industry is heavily reliant on global stars such as Adele and Ed Sheeran, and discussed the increasing use of non-music brands such as Burberry for the advertisement and exposure of new artists.

The second morning session was entitled ‘Politics and Performance’ and featured an exploration of PJ Harvey’s Revolving Wheel as ‘political assemblage’ (Jacob Downs, Oxford), followed by a discussion of masculine identity in hip-hop, which focused on the work of Kanye West (Carl Emery, Keele).

After lunch, papers were given on the social motivations behind the purchase and collection of Vinyl (Pete Gofton, Goldsmiths), music and meaning in the Algerian community in London (Steve Wilford, City University London), the influence of Louis Armstrong on Django Reinhardt (Jeremiah Spillane, Goldsmiths) and finally, a proposal of an ‘environment-based connective model’ which will bridge the music industry and academia (Max Cervellino, Westminster).

Steve Wilford presenting his paper

The final session focused on gender. Here Katrina Fuschillo (UEA) outlined the early stages of her research on contemporary listening practices and musical tastes of ‘working-class women and teenage girls’, and this was followed by a discussion of the representation of women in Bob Dylan’s Tarantula (Sara Martinez, Lancaster).

Many thought-provoking ideas were raised throughout an enjoyable and interesting day.

AHRC Cultural Engagement researcher Andrew Pace talks about his work with a collection of British and Irish folk music

Since January – as an Arts and Humanities Research Council Cultural Engagement Fellow – I’ve been cataloguing a collection of paper files at the British Library that belonged to Peter Kennedy (1922–2006), a renowned collector of British and Irish traditional music and customs. His archive spans roughly 1600 open reel tapes (around half of which are his own field recordings), 1500 photographs and 170 boxes of correspondence and song texts – a vast collection!

Whilst trawling through Peter’s papers, I discovered a number of reports he had written in the 1950s that detail his daily activities when he was travelling the UK and Ireland recording hundreds of traditional performers, including Harry Cox, Margaret Barry, Fred Jordan and the McPeake family. I realised that these detailed reports would provide an ideal focal point for a website which would collate and contextualise all of the material from his collection that I have helped the British Library to digitise over the past few years:

www.peterkennedyarchive.org

Here, Peter’s reports can be scrolled through as interactive images, where clicking on a performer’s name reveals related sound recordings and photographs from his collection. Links to currently undigitised recordings in the Library’s catalogue are also present. This simple interface holds a large amount of information, but presents it in a way that encourages its discovery rather than relying on users navigating it by text searches.

Encouraging users to explore the collection in this way also draws attention to Peter Kennedy as a collector – a narrative that is easily lost in the impersonality of library catalogue systems, but is one which lies at the heart of this collection. As an ethnomusicologist, I find these kind of insights into Peter’s fieldwork methodologies fascinating.

However, interest in Peter’s work is not limited to academics, but extends to practicing musicians, too. It’s hoped that this site will stimulate musicians and researchers to continue to engage with his work and to explore the large amount of material that hasn’t yet made it onto my website.

Peter Kennedy Records Edgar Allington in Weeting, Suffolk, 1955

Andrew Pace completed his BMus and MA at City University London and has recently completed a PhD in Ethnomusicology at the University of Manchester.

City Staff and Students Feature Prominently at the British Forum for Ethnomusicology Annual Conference

Posted by Sam MacKay, Music PhD Student

Current and former City lecturers and students featured strongly in the recent annual conference of the British Forum for Ethnomusicology, held 14-17 April at the University of Kent. The 4 day event is the pre-eminent meeting for ethnomusicologists based in the UK and is among the most significant events in the field globally. This year’s conference took place at the Historic Dockyards in Chatham and brought together over 100 international scholars under the theme of “New Currents in Ethnomusicology”.

Presentations from City-based researchers included Dr Laudan Nooshin (Reader in Ethnomusicology) on music and cyberspace in Iran and Sam Mackay (PhD student) on music and the symbolic economy in Marseille. Dr Nooshin was also awarded the prestigious BFE Book Prize for her recent monograph Iranian Classical Music. The Discourses and Practice of Creativity.

In another success for the City research community, PhD student Stephen Wilford was elected as the BFE’s new Conference Liaison Co-officer. The role includes organising the BFE’s conferences, study days and other events and contributing proactively to the organisation’s strategies and initiatives.

The conference also featured presentations from numerous former City students including Barley Norton (current BFE Chair), Hwee San Tan, Andy Pace and Richard Lightman.

City Alumnus Andy Pace Presenting

Current Music PhD Student, Sam MacKay

Laudan Nooshin Receiving her Award

Laudan Nooshin Wins Book Prize

Dr Laudan Nooshin, Reader in the Department of Music, has been awarded the 2016 British Forum for Ethnomusicology (BFE) Book Prize for her monograph, Iranian Classical Music: The Discourse and Practice of Creativity (Ashgate, 2015). This prestigious prize is awarded every two years in recognition of outstanding scholarship in the field of ethnomusicology – the study of music in cultural contexts.

Iranian Classical Music is a study of musical creativity. It explores the ways in which musicians and others in Iran talk about creativity and the processes by which new music comes into being. As well as seeking to understand the relationship between discourse and practice, this is the first book to examine how ideas about tradition, authenticity, innovation and modernity form part of wider social discourses on musical creativity in Iranian music, most notably in relation to debates on national and cultural identity.

Dr Laudan Nooshin

Dr Nooshin (above right) said: “I’m honoured and delighted to receive this award. The research for the book started almost 30 years ago so it has been a very long journey – and this is such a nice way for my part of the journey to end. The book will hopefully continue its own journey as it is read by others! Of course, I have many people to thank, including the amazing musicians without whom the book wouldn’t have been possible, the publishing team at Ashgate, my wonderful colleagues, peers and senior scholars for their support and encouragement, and above all my family.”

Dr Amanda Villepastour from Cardiff University (above left) also received a commendation for her book The Yorùbá God of Drumming: Transatlantic Perspectives on the Wood that Talks.

The BFE prize committee said Dr Nooshin’s book was a unanimous choice for the award, which carries a £100 prize. The BFE said: “Iranian Classical Music is the product of a long journey from PhD to recent research, revisited in the light of post-colonial theory, and interrogates many aspects of theory through the lens of the study of musicians and their practices. It aims to understand musical creativity as meaningful social practice, to find an approach through Iranian creative practice that overcomes the composition/improvisation dualism and undoes the logic of alterity.

“As well as the detailed engagement and analysis of Iranian music, this monograph is located within a theoretical discourse that includes issues relevant to all ethnomusicological research, including a critique of binaries (ethno/musicology, West/East, folk/art, us/them, individual/collective), connections between musical and linguistic cognitive processes, music/linguistic grammars, the motor/body creative impetus, and defining terminology when moving between languages. “The structure of the book is clear and logical and the notational examples are fully supported with an included CD. The writing style is very clear, dealing with complex issues and explaining them, showing great awareness of issues of language and communication with a wide readership.”

Iranian Classical Music book cover

Dr Nooshin recently published two book chapters relating to her ongoing research on Iranian popular music and culture. The chapters are: Jazz and its Social Meanings in Iran: From Cultural Colonialism to the Universal, in the book Jazz Worlds/World Jazz; and Discourses of Religiosity in Post-1998 Iranian Popular Music, in Islam and Popular Culture.

City Research Seminar with Tom Perchard

On 9 March the research seminar welcomed Tom Perchard from Goldsmiths to speak on “Placing Audio in the Postwar British Home: History, Technology and Listening“. The stimulating — and entertaining — talk led to lively discussion from the members of the City community and visitors in attendance.

Tom seeks to challenge some current narratives of “hi-fi” as an exclusively male domain in 1950’s-60’s Britain, such as Keir Knightley’s 1996 article “‘Turn It down!’ She Shrieked: Gender, Domestic Space, and High Fidelity, 1948-59“. While this trope — of hi-fi audio as a gendered escape from the domestic space of the suburban post-war home — may have described some experiences, it may have been more significant as an advertising ploy than as factual reality. With evidence garnered from the diary collection of the Bishopsgate Institute, Tom points to women of diverse ages and economic backgrounds who were just as enthusiastic and sensitive hi-fi listeners as their male counterparts. In parallel Tom documents the development of advertisements in periodicals HiFi and Ideal Home, tracing the evolution of hi-fi from DIY hobby to interior design trend in the increasingly mediatised space of the post-war home. In parallel the iconic figure of the lone adult male seated in a leather chair in a pose of intense listening — whom Tom likens to Caspar David Friedrich’s wanderer — eventually yields in the mid-1960s to hi-fi ads featuring teens and women as societal and market forces change.

The compelling topic and engaging delivery accompanied by, at times humorous, vintage hi-fi ads touched an audience with a wide range of interests, criss-crossing fields of historical musicology, popular music studies, gender, and techno-culture. Questions and discussion that followed brought up issues of privacy and access to diary documents, the simultaneous evolution of the television as media and domestic object, and differences between British and North American domestic spaces. Many thanks to Tom for opening up this fascinating field for us!

Aaron Einbond, Lecturer in Composition

City Research Seminar on ‘Life Post-PhD’

On Wednesday 24th February, 2016, three City University alumni – Sini Timonen (BIMM), Laura Seddon (University of Portsmouth) and Robert Percy (Composer) – came in to discuss the paths that they have taken since completing their PhDs in the Music Department. It was an informative session for current postgraduates, and fascinating to learn how each member of the panel had charted their own course – both in and out of academia – after completing their research degrees.

As a composer, Robert balances commissioned works with lecturing, including the UG module Orchestral and Instrumental Studies at City. Through teaching experiences gained during her PhD research, Sini quickly found her way into a management role at modern music institute BIMM. Laura set up her own contemporary arts production organisation, before finding an interdisciplinary academic post for her research on gender and music, in the School of Languages at the University of Portsmouth.

Sini, Robert and Laura all agreed on a number of important aspects for planning life post-PhD. They recommended making and maintaining personal connections, as well as thinking outside the box (and outside of jobs.ac.uk) when considering employment opportunities. They all created their own events and found innovative ways to disseminate their research. Most of all, they reminded us that creative thinking and new ideas can be applied to finding your way in life after the PhD, as well as within your thesis.

Tullis Rennie, Visiting Lecturer in Composition

Andrew Lambert awarded Silver Prize by the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists

Interdisciplinary PhD student Andrew Lambert has been honoured by the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists (WCIT) for his outstanding contribution to the field of computer science.

The Information Technologists Company makes information and communication technology (ICT) accessible and usable to everyone; campaigns for the removal of barriers to accessible IT for all; and encourages greater professionalism in the design, assessment and support of accessible ICT.

Andrew, whose PhD (supervised by Dr Tillman Weyde and Dr Newton Armstrong) focuses on oscillating networks for music generation, is the holder of an MSc in Creative Systems from the University of Sussex and a BA (Hons) in European Theatre Arts from Rose Bruford College.

The Middle East in London Magazine Features City Staff and Student

The Middle East in London magazine is published five times a year by the London Middle East Institute at the School or Oriental and African Studies. The February/March 2016 issue is a special issue on Iranian music and features articles by City lecturer Dr Laudan Nooshin and PhD student Roya Arab, as well as a review of Laudan’s 2015 book Iranian Classical Music: The Discourses and Practice of Creativity (Ashgate Press) by Stefan Williamson Fa.

Laudan’s article ‘Sounding the City: Tehran’s Contemporary Soundscapes’ is based on her recent field trip to Iran in August/ September 2015 and explores the relationship between sound and the urban environment as a means of understanding individuals’ engagement with the sensory sound-worlds that they inhabit. Roya’s article – ‘Swaying to Persian and Middle Eastern Tunes in London’ – offers a snapshot of Iranian and Middle Eastern music in London.

Pdfs of the two articles and book review are available below.

https://www.soas.ac.uk/lmei/meil/

Nooshin, MEIL article Jan 2016

Roya Arab Middle East in London Magazine Article (Jan 2016)

Review of Laudan Nooshin, Iranian Classical Music, MEIL Jan 2016

Recent news from PhD Students: Miranda Crowdus

City Music PhD student Miranda Crowdus has recently been appointed to the position of Research Assistant at the European Centre for Jewish Music at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media, Germany. She will be conducting interdisciplinary research on Jewish musical-liturgical practices in women’s Rosh Chodesh (new month) services. Miranda’s PhD thesis is entitled ‘Hip Hop Practices in South Tel Aviv: “Third Space”, Convergent Dispossession(s), and Intercultural Dynamics in Urban Borderlands’. She has recently published a chapter entitled ‘Deviance, Polyvalence and Musical “Third Space”: Negotiating Boundaries of Jewishness at Palestinian Hip Hop Performances’ in the book Boundaries, Identity and Belonging in Modern Judaism (Routledge 2015).

Miranda sends many many thanks to all her friends and mentors at City as well as very best wishes for 2016.

City Speakers at Hidden Musicians Revisited Conference

In 1989 Ruth Finnegan – an anthropologist based at the Open University – published a book called ‘The Hidden Musicians: Music-Making in an English Town’. Based on several years of ethnographic research in the ‘new town’ of Milton Keynes, the book uncovered a wealth of amateur music-making in a town which had become widely dubbed as a ‘cultural desert’. ‘The Hidden Musicians’ became a landmark publication in the study of music and culture.

On 11th and 12th January 2016, ‘The Hidden Musicians Revisited’ conference was held at the Open University in Milton Keynes. It was organised by City University music alumna Catherine Tackley (now teaching at the OU) and was attended by about 50 people from across the UK and abroad. Keynote papers were presented by Ruth Finnegan herself and Professor Derek Scott (University of Leeds).

City lecturer Laudan Nooshin and completing PhD student and Visiting Lecturer Stephen WIlford both presented papers at the conference, as follows: ‘Hide and Seek: The Internet as an Alternative Public Space for Iran’s ‘Hidden’ Musicians’ and ‘Hidden Musicians in Public Spaces: Algerian Musics and Festivals in Contemporary London’.

This was a fascinating conference in which papers addressed many different aspects of ‘hidden-ness’ in relation to music and musicians.

Music at City

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