Call for Papers
Jazz Research Journal special issue
19 November 2008
Adelphi House, University of Salford

“History is his story – my story is a mystery” (Sun Ra)

Since the mid-1990s jazz scholars have challenged established jazz histories, using a range of critical methodologies to examine the constructed nature of existing narratives. More recently, studies have set out either to write new jazz histories or to expose the underlying ideologies of canon formation and a linear tradition found within the jazz mainstream.

This one day symposium will explore the theme of New Jazz Histories, using Alyn Shipton’s New History of Jazz (Continuum, 2007 [2nd edition]) as a starting point for discussion. Alyn Shipton will provide an introduction to the event, focusing on the problems of reconciling academic history, oral history and discographical concerns in one synoptic history. Subsequent papers may seek to use Shipton’s work as a starting point for discussion, exploring the nature of jazz history. The event aims to provide an interdisciplinary context for discussing and developing a deeper critical understanding of what jazz is.

The review committee welcomes papers that cover one or more of the following topics:

• Writing new jazz histories
• Tradition and lineage
• The origins of jazz
• Causality and teleological narration
• Historical revisionism
• Canonisation and cultural value
• The mythology of jazz
• Progress and modernity
• Forms of jazz historiography
• Jazz modernism, postmodernism and the avant garde
• Community and boundary
• Subverting dominant codes and conventions

Selected papers will feature as articles in a special issue of the Jazz Research Journal, to be published in 2009. Therefore, authors must ensure that submissions have not been previously published or being considered for publication elsewhere.

Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be submitted to Tony Whyton by 15 September 2008.

Review panel: Tony Whyton (University of Salford), Nicholas Gebhardt (University of Lancaster), Catherine Parsonage (Open University) and George McKay (University of Salford)

Call for Papers
Annual Conference of the British Forum for Ethnomusicology 2009
http://www.bfe2009.net
Submission deadline: 30 November 2008

The Annual Conference of the BFE will be held from 16 – 19 April 2009, and hosted by the Popular Music Studies Unit at Liverpool John Moores University, UK. This 4-day conference seeks to generate new perspectives and understandings on the interrelatedness of music, culture and globalisation through stimulating interdisciplinary and intercultural theoretical dialogues, and thereby moving beyond those conceptualisations that are already established in ethnomusicology and other music-related disciplines. To this end, various guest speakers will be engaged to contribute a range of different theoretical perspectives on a more contemporary understanding of music and global culture. The keynote will be delivered by Professor John Tomlinson, Professor of Cultural Sociology and authority on the cultural aspects of the globalisation process.

Submissions are now invited on any aspect of the theme with papers that seek to explore newer issues relating to this subject, including, but by no means limited to, the following: (1) Musical traditions in transformation; (2) Music, place and identity; (3) New centres and peripheries? ; (4) Music, mediation and tourism; (5) New approaches to ethnographic enquiry and research methods. Abstracts (approximately 300 words) for paper presentations lasting 20 minutes should be submitted by 30 November 2008. Film shows and performances may also be proposed, as may pre-formed panels or workshop sessions, for which a longer abstract with named speakers should be submitted (approximately 1,000 words).

The Annual BFE Conference will be held in Liverpool (UK), a buzzing musical city that has just celebrated its 800th birthday in 2007 and continues celebrations as European Capital of Culture 2008. Liverpool is renowned for its vibrant music culture and the Beatles, football, maritime heritage, arts and culture, shopping, and exciting nightlife, and there will be time during the conference to explore its fabulous attractions. There will be a conference dinner and party on Saturday evening, and a themed night and a range of live music performances are also planned.

Detailed information on all aspects of the conference can be found on the
BFE conference website, or obtained directly from Dr
Simone Krüger, BFE 2009 Conference Organiser.

Call for Papers

Popular Music Worlds, Popular Music Histories
IASPM 15th biennial conference
University of Liverpool, UK
July 13-17, 2009

For its 15th biennial conference, the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) invites papers which explore the various connections and disconnections between popular musical worlds and popular music histories. Given Liverpool’s important place in relation to both areas, it will provide an ideal setting for papers submitted to the following streams:

Studying Popular Music: A Reassessment
Convenor: Martha Tupinambá de Ulhôa

Since the first attempts in the late 1970s and 1980s much has been done in terms of adapting analytical tools from several disciplines to the study of popular music. This stream welcomes papers dealing with the analysis of specific aspects of popular music (timbre, texture, prosody, melody, rhythm, harmony, arranging, etc.) or case studies of particular songs or instrumental pieces from any theoretical perspective.

Popular Music and Technology in a Historical Context
Convenor: Carlo Nardi

Different intellectual technologies have contributed to the way people produce and listen to popular music, be it orality, printing, recording or even the Internet. This stream welcomes papers dealing with the technological impacts upon popular music practices, including questions from cultural, aesthetic, ideological, economic, sociological, historical, legal or musicological perspectives.

Music, History and Cultural Memory
Convenor: Shane Homan

This stream seeks contributions that investigate popular music histories and the methodological challenges in their researching and writing. What particular historical narratives and agendas emerge, and what are their effects? The stream includes work that examines the role of popular music history in wider national histories and their presence in both informal (e.g. fan club newsletters) and formal (e.g. museums) contexts. Papers are also welcome that explore the role of ‘unofficial’ / ‘shadow’ music histories that challenge or offer alternatives to grander narratives and industry mythologies, to comprehend a politics of cultural memory studies in terms of what is officially preserved from oblivion and what is socially excluded from remembrance.

Music, Mediation and Place
Convenor: Geoff Stahl

The intersection of place-making and music-making as a site of mediation is a complicated one. From the use of certain music scenes or moments which have been mobilized as heritage myths and tourist packages, to issues related to the use of micro and mass media to bind musicmakers together–locally, regionally, nationally, and globally–the intersection of time and place as a highly mediated process has proven a vexed and complex phenomenon. We welcome papers which explore the many issues relating to music histories, representations, discourses, spaces and places, as well as those that consider the various research methods which might be best be deployed to capture this phenomenon.

Musical Struggles
Convenor: Michael Drewett

Being a musician inevitably involves struggle: Musicians starting out struggle to make it, musicians ‘in the margins’ struggle towards mainstream coverage, some musicians involve themselves in political struggle to do with identity issues and/or social issues, while in contexts of censorship, repression and control some musicians struggle to be heard. Even commercially successful musicians can become embroiled in corporate struggle over contractual obligations. This stream seeks contributions which document and conceptualise such struggles within a socio-political framework.

Abstracts should be no longer than 250 words (one page) and should be sent in the following format:

Title
Presenter(s)
Institution
Email
Abstract
Keywords (five keywords that best describe your topic)

Abstracts should be sent to BOTH the conference address and the convenor of your stream. The conference address is:

iaspm2009@iaspm.net

Please label your abstract with your last name (i.e. smith.rtf, or smith.doc), not the title.

The deadline for abstracts is July 1, 2008.

We will notify participants no later than November 1st, 2008.

We look forward to seeing you.

The IASPM-International Executive

Nov. 14-16, 2008
Hosted by William Moylan at The University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, Massachusetts, USA

Call For Papers

Conference Summary:
The ARP Conference gathers together industry professionals, academic scholars, and musicians who utilize and study recording technology as a principle means of creative expression. It is the aim of this conference to facilitate the exchange of ideas between these groups, drawing upon broad areas of expertise, and providing a unique opportunity for individuals to inform, challenge, and stimulate the discourse surrounding the intersection of technology and music. ARP provides a platform for the exchange of ideas and multiple perspectives across disciplines.
The conference addresses a range of topics such as; how creative expression is achieved through technological practices; how changes in recording technology have impacted upon and informed musical practices; the so-called “democratization” of access to modes of creative expression and the resultant opportunities for the distribution of recorded work in the age of computer-based recording and the Internet.
The conference will comprise academic papers, industry speakers and panels, practical demonstrations and masterclasses as well as plentiful opportunities for networking and informal debate.

The 2008 Conference will deliver four streams of papers and panels around the following topics:

1. The Studio as Musical Instrument.
In 1983 Brian Eno described the recording studio as his musical instrument. After several decades of technological change, it is worth considering how the definition of what constitutes a “studio” has shifted, and the various technological, economical, and political impacts these shifts have had and continue to have on contemporary music. What does “The Studio as Musical Instrument” mean today? How has recording practice affected composition, arranging and song writing practice? How have “composer,” “performer,” “engineer,” “conductor,” or “musician” been redefined? How has the “recording studio” changed music and music making? Please send proposals for this stream to: arp08_smi@artofrecordproduction.com

2. Recording Practice and Performance.
How have changes in recording practice affected performance practice amongst recording musicians? How has technology influenced the sound art which results? How do record producers, musicians and sound engineers communicate in the studio? How do they view each other? How have the control surfaces of the studio been absorbed into and influenced musical performance? How do issues such as comfort and non-verbal communication between musicians balance against separation and audio quality in the recording process? How is the creative power distributed between musicians, producers, record companies and technicians? Please send proposals for this stream to: arp08_rpp@artofrecordproduction.com

3. The Empowered Artist
The means for composing, performing, recording, promoting and distributing sound recordings is available to all artists. Is the ‘capability’ to do it all being matched by the ‘ability’ to do it well? Are the potentially conflicting challenges of business and creation being juggled without undermining the economic or artistic value of what results? How has low-cost audio production technology impacted the recording industry, both economically as well as in re-casting the creative technologies contained in professional facilities? Please send proposals for this stream to: arp08_tea@artofrecordproduction.com

4. Production and the Listener
How aware are listeners of the possibilities and actualities of production? How aware are the industry professionals who are not involved in production? How do production practices impact on notions of authenticity? Are alternative mixes regarded by listeners as aesthetically equivalent? Do producers work with specific listening environments or audiences in mind? How has this impacted on the historical development of record production? Please send proposals for this stream to: arp08_pl@artofrecordproduction.com

Other subject areas will be considered and we encourage the submission of papers on any topic associated with the art of record production.

Proposals for individual papers and poster presentations should not exceed 300 words.

Proposals for panels should include the names and brief CVs of all panel members and their individual contributions and should not exceed 1000 words.

The deadline for proposals is the 15th April 2008.
General enquiries can be addressed to Simon Zagorski-Thomas