Von: Lepa, Steffen via ak discourse
Datum: Wed, 12 Mar 2025
Betreff: [ak-discourse] CfP „Hands On Sonic Skills“
Dear Colleagues,
please consider the following call for our international conference in upcoming December 2025:
Hands on Sonic Skills
Practical experiential approaches to sound, music, and media in musicological education
Conference on December 11 & 12, 2025
Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Department of Musicology
Keynotes: Andreas Fickers and Joanna Szczepańska-Antosik
Call for Papers / Abstract
Media and technologies for synthesis, recording, processing, and distribution of sound have become important subjects of music research. Examples include the history of sound recording (Sterne 2003, Katz 2010, Horning 2013, Bennett 2019), the significance of technical devices in music scenes (Theberge 1997, Butler 2014, Herbst/Menze 2021), or musical analysis oriented toward sound and music production processes (Zagorsky-Thomas 2016, Hepworth-Sawyer et al. 2019).
Across the intersection of musicology, media studies, sound studies, and other disciplines, new disciplinary branches such as Music Production Research (Bennett & Bates 2019; Bourbon & Zagorski 2020) have emerged, which have developed their own theoretical approaches and methods for researching recorded and technically mediated music. Today, knowledge of audio-technical processes and a sensory sensitivity for the design of sound are no longer regarded merely as engineering expertise, but as part of cultural practices that shape musical activity from the ground up and must therefore also be part of musicological questions and knowledge.
Such knowledge is often implicit, ‚tacit knowledge‘ and therefore observable as practice or musical action. Therefore, ethnographic, praxeological, and artistic research methods are particularly frequently applied in this field, for example in the form of field research (Bürkner 2013; Bates 2017; Huschner 2016), reenactments (Fickers/van den Oever 2022; Meynell 2017), and media experiments in artistic research (Badura et al 2015, van der Heijden/Kolkowski 2023). These approaches suggest that in many cases observations informed by one’s own experiential practical approaches aid in gaining a deeper understanding of media-cultural-musicological phenomena.
This shift is also taking root in musicological teaching, for instance in new chairs, module regulations, and degree programs. At locations such as Bonn, Oldenburg, Berlin (HU), Lüneburg, Hildesheim, and Halle (Saale), as well as in London, Agder, Huddersfield, or Concordia, recording studio technology, synthesizers, DIY electronics, and Digital Audio Workstations are becoming essential elements of musicological education. The practical engagement with sound and its production contexts ranges from the history of the tape recorder to introductory courses in miking and mixing techniques to listening sessions that focus on the sonic design of ›produced music.‹ This engagement often takes place in university-owned recording studios. These ›toolscapes‹ of music production prove to be particularly suitable places for practice-oriented learning. (King & Hemonides 2016).
The conference brings together a cross-section of materially and practically oriented research and teaching and offers space for discussions on how current scientific and didactic approaches can benefit from each other.
This raises the following questions:
(1) Which basic practical sound knowledge should be part of a musicological education? What is the relationship between scientific (musical acoustics) and music-psychological approaches (sound perception, auditory physiology) and research centered on cultural aspects such as sound studies or pop musical analysis? What forms of implicit or ›embodied‹ knowledge, what practical abilities in handling analog and digital audio technology, and what systematic training of technical hearing or critical listening skills are required for sound and music analysis today?
(2) How can these contents be integrated into the framework of academic education in a contemporary and didactically meaningful way without becoming too superficial or too specialized? What role does the relationship between in-person teaching and digital learning offerings play? What methods and ideas for seminar or semester structures exist? We will present our own procedures and learning formats in the beta version of our hybrid teaching platform METRONOM, on which, in addition to a module for technical ear training for musicologists, we provide material and instructions for the experiential-practical teaching of sound (technologies) and music media works in classroom teaching, especially in forms of re-enactment.
(3) How relevant are sound and media technologies as aspects of musical design not only for contemporary musicological education but also for practice-oriented professional fields? What knowledge is required in journalistic fields such as radio, press, and online media, in curatorial and museal contexts, in concert and theater, archives, publishing, and music management?
(4) How should the recording studio be set up as a learning space for musicology? How can it help students gain a deeper understanding of production processes in the context of sound technologies without overloading the learning process? Which ‚toolscapes‘ offer inspiring environments for sound-related project work? What didactic as well as practical-technical challenges should be considered in this special learning environment?
We invite you to submit proposals for individual presentations, panels, workshops, and posters related, but not restricted to, the following topics:
· Technical ear training / Critical listening skills
· Musical applications of recording technology
· Handling of time- and style-specific devices and production environments (Multitrack, MPCs, Push, etc.)
· Elaboration and performance of electroacoustic and experimental music in teaching
· Experiential/practical approaches in sound studies
· Artistic research in music and sound art
· Modular synthesizers in teaching
· Sound description and language in music analysis
· Use of digital tools in musicological sound and music analysis (Sonic Visualizer, etc.)
· Realization/production of recordings as student research in the studio
· Hybrid formats and use of digital learning platforms
· Higher education didactic methods related to audio technology
· Historically and culturally comparative perspectives on the above questions
We explicitly understand ›Hands on Sonic Skills‹ as a learning, working, and workshop conference. Therefore, we ask you to consider organizing workshops (60-90 min) focusing on special teaching methods or topics, in addition to classical presentations (20 min + 10 min discussion) and joint panels (90 min). A poster session will provide the opportunity to exchange ideas about methods, didactics, and individual student projects. Smaller technical experiments and setups are explicitly encouraged.
The conference is organized as part of the educational research project METRONOM – Media Transformation of Musical Knowledge (2024-2026). Funding is provided by FREIRAUM financed by the BMBF and administered by the Foundation for Innovation in Higher Education (STIL). The conference is organized at the research section Music and Media, headed by Prof. Dr. Golo Föllmer. Team: Alan van Keeken, Sebastian Schwesinger, Lukas Iden, and Katja Lux.
Conference languages are German and English. Participation is free of charge.
Please send your abstract (max. 400 words) and CV (max. 100 words) by April 30, 2025, indicating your preferred format, to alan.van-keeken@musikwiss.uni-halle.de
Literatur/e:
Badura, Jens et al (2015): Künstlerische Forschung. Ein Handbuch, Zürich/Berlin.
Bates, Eliot (2016), Digital tradition: Arrangement and labor in Istanbul’s recording studio culture, New York.
Bennett, Samantha and Bates, Eliot (2018), ‘The Production of Music and Sound: A Multidisciplinary Critique’, in Bennett and Bates (eds), Critical Approaches to the Production of Music and Sound, New York, pp. 1–22.
Bennett, Samantha (2019), Modern Records, Maverick Methods: Technology and Process in Popular Music Record Production 1978-2000, New York.
Bourbon, Andrew and Zagorski-Thomas, Simon (eds) (2020), The Bloomsbury Handbook of Music Production., New York.
Bürkner, Hans-Joachim (2013): Trackproduktion als Trial and Error? in: Bürkner et al (eds): Akustisches Kapital. Wertschöpfung in der Musikwirtschaft, Bielefeld, pp. 45-98.
Butler, Mark J. (2014), Playing with something that runs: Technology, improvisation, and composition in DJ and laptop performance, Oxford.
Fickers, Andreas and van der Oever, Annie (2022), Doing Experimental Media Archaeology, Berlin/Boston.
Herbst, Jan Peter and Menze, Jonas (2021), Gear Aquisition Syndrome: Consumption of Instruments and Technology in Popular Music, Huddersfield.
Hepworth-Sawyer, Russ, Hodgson, Jay and Marrington, Mark (eds) (2019), Producing music. Perspectives on music production series, New York.
Huschner, Roland (2016), „[…] if it would be me producing the song…“: Eine Studie zu den Prozessen in Tonstudios der populären Musikproduktion, Humboldt-Universität Berlin.
Katz, Mark (2010), Capturing Sound: How Technology Has Changed Music, London.
King, Andrew and Himonides, Evangelos (eds) (2016), Music, Technology, and Education: Critical Perspectives, London and New York.
Meynell, Anthony (2017), How Recording Studios Used Technology to Invoke the Psychedelic Experience: The difference in staging techniques in British and American recordings in the late 1960s, London.
Rosati, Tommaso and Hsu, Timothy (2025), Play with Sound: Manual for Electronic Musicians and Other Sound Explorers, London.
Schmidt-Horning, Susan (2013), Chasing Sound: Technology, Culture and the Art of Recording from Edison to the L.P, Baltimore.
Sterne, Jonathan (2003), The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction., Durham.
Théberge, Paul (1997), Any Sound you can imagine: Making Music/Consuming Technology, Hanover.
van der Heijden, Tim and Kolkowski, Alexander (2023), Doing Experimental Media Archeology, Berlin/Boston.
Zagorski-Thomas, Simon (2016), ‘An Analysis of Space, Gesture and Interaction in Kings of Leon’s Sex on Fire’, in Moore, von Appen and Doehring (eds), Song Interpretation in 21st-Century Pop Music, London, pp. 115–33.
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