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Background and Goals
For several decades, philosophy of music or, more generally, humanistic research in music has concentrated on issues such as
the relationships between music and speech
the influence on local and global culture exerted by the immediate availability of music from virtually any time and place
the ways in which agents hear sounds as meaningful and representative, even when they come from the realm of what is usually thought of as “noise”
the ontological status of the work of music or more narrowly the status of the composition
And, more recently,
understanding processes in the minds of performing musicians and
inspired by the results of such investigations in music ensembles, getting a deeper understanding of human interaction in communities (or just person to person) in general.
Among the topics to which these considerations give rise are:
the extension and application of successful music teaching strategies to pedagogical method in general
expanding the techniques of music pedagogy by integrating those from other disciplines
assessing the implications of various approaches to music pedagogy with respect to expressivity, mastery, and individuality.
The Research Program The Aesthetics of Music and Sound, located at the Institute for Philosophy, Education and the Study of Religions, University of Southern Denmark, aims at shedding new light upon these questions by viewing music in terms of information and communication, aided by the tools under rapid development within information technology, practice-based research and the new perspectives arising within aesthetics as a result of new technologies for studying and producing music.
This line of thought has been developing for more than nine years in the Network for Cross-disciplinary Studies of Music and Meaning (NTSMB[1]) which has its base at the Humanistic Faculty of The University of Southern Denmark (SDU) and was founded with a two-year start-up grant from the Danish Research Council for the Humanities in 2001-2003. The purpose of the present Research Program is to amplify this research with the work being done in the technological field of Music Informatics by researchers at Aalborg University Esbjerg (AAUE) and with the practice-based research of The Academy of Music and Music Communication, Esbjerg (VMK – abbreviation of the Danish name Vestjysk Musikkonservatorium; as of January 1, 2010, the Academy of Music and Music Communication, Esbjerg, has merged with The Carl Nielsen Academy, Odense/Det Fynske Musikkonservatorium (DFM) and The School of Dramatic Arts at Odense Theatre/Skuespillerskolen ved Odense Teater (SkO) and the new entity is entitled Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts/Syddansk Musikkonservatorium & Skuespillerskole (SMKS) with facilities in both Esbjerg and Odense).
Music Informatics and its more specific subdiscipline Computer Music Modelling and Information Retrieval deal in short with making computers recognize, synthesize and play music. The projects 1b-c and 3b-c (see the “Projects” tab) will sketch how this research deepens our understanding of human interaction through music.
Practice-based research is an important topic for the Research Program in three different areas: I) when studying the work of music ensembles, a study which must have actual performances and rehearsals as its material, II) the research of the potential strengthening of students’ learning capacities bymeans of the skills acquired through musical education and experience and III) when trying to find ways of comparing the knowledge and skills obtained by musicians and composers to the more discursive knowledge paradigm of the academic world. There are recent and ongoing attempts in Denmark to place conservatory educations on an equal footing with those offered by universities. This provides some interesting challenges, in that the performing, composing and listening skills developed within conservatory environments don't necessarily fit in well with the more discursive sorts of knowledge commonly prized within university milieux. How should the knowledge which is clearly implicit in a fine performance by a concert musician or a piece written by an accomplished composer be made discursively explicit - or does the academic world need to expand its own horizons with regard to its own ideas regarding the nature and communication of knowledge? If the latter is the case, how can this be done without sacrificing rigor, clarity of thought or quality of argumentation? The Aesthetics of Music and Sound is fortunate enough to be able to draw on the expertise of Finnish philosopher Tere Vadén, who is a leading force in the area of performance-based research and will be full-time affiliate with the center. Tere Vadén has worked in philosophy of science, in general, and on the question of the identity and role of science in contemporary society, in particular. These interests all seem to converge around artistic research.
. . . . What we see and hear is a need for carefully argued for criteria, principles and guidelines that are situated in both qualitative research and artistic practices. We have to keep in mind that even though artistic research has certainly been produced at various moments over the last twenty years, the research methods in the different fields of art and artistic expression – from music via design to theatre and from the visual arts to visual culture – are still only in the process of evolving, both in themselves and in relation to other artistic traditions.
[…] The question is, how and within what framework should artistic research be carried out? (Hannula, Suoranta and Vadén 2005, p.11)[2]
It is important that researchers involved in the rapidly evolving traditions within computer music modelling and information retrieval do not become engrossed only in the – often very absorbing – problems which arise in this field as the tools themselves become more complex and theoretically sophisticated, thus risking loss of contact with the culture and practices of the world which they are trying to understand by means of models and simulations. Conversely, it is important that musicians and composers are updated as to the wealth of possibilities for new kinds of examination of even the most traditional forms of musical practice opened up by new digital technologies and the new kinds of questions, the framing of which are inspired by these technologies.There are, indeed, now resources which warrant the development of new types of musicology, and, although traditional musicology will certainly always have a place on the academic map, those researchers who are deaf to the new technologies may well find themselves engaging in a form of academic re-enactment rather than bona fide research. A similar remark holds for humanists in general: questions of what “meaning” is, and what characterizes human communication, tends to be so bound up with language in the minds of many philosophers and theorists that the matter of whether or not music or any sort of sound-for-sound’s sake may be meaningful or viewed as a form communicative tool too often simply receives a negative answer. What is far more fruitful and exciting is to recognize that – whatever conceptual understanding we have gained regarding “meaning” – people do find music and sonic art “meaningful” – and important, and further that music does play a part in our communication (imagine a language without intonation or melody or a classic Hollywood film without a score!), a part that must be further examined.
A large number of unusually versatile and experienced people in the milieux outlined above regularly meet to share in each other’s work and expertise in the contexts of NTSMB, The online journal JMM: The Journal of Music and Meaning[3], the ISMIR[4] and CMMR[5] conferences, and NNIMIPA [6]. A continually growing list of international network partners is kept up-to-date on this site on the "Links" page.
The Aesthetics of Music and Sound also has the strength of the geographical proximity of the three Danish institutions SDU (which also has a campus in Esbjerg), AAUE and SMKS, each of which contribute substantially to the work being done in the program. This does, of course, by no means rule out collaborations with other institutions as well. The Research Program The Aesthetics of Music and Sound is thus (and will continue to be) a real synergetic force field - something that can benefit other work being done at the respective institutions as well.
[1] Abbreviation of the Danish Netværk for Tværvidenskabelige Studier af Musik og Betydning; please see www.ntmsb.dk.
[2] For more information on Tere Vadén, see the tab “People”.
[3] A peer reviewed Internet journal initiated by the NTSMB; please see www.musicandmeaning.net.
[4] The International International Socieity for Music Information Retrieval; please see http://www.ismir.net/
[5] Computer Music Modelling and Information Retrieval; please see http://www.cmmr2010.etsit.uma.es/
[6] Nordic Network for the Integration of Music Informatics, Performance and Aesthetics; please see www.nnimipa.org.
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Institute of Philosophy,
Education and the Study
of Religions
Research Director for
The Aesthetics of
Music and Sound:
and
Editor and Webmaster for
www.soundmusicresearch.org:
Cynthia M. Grund
cmgrund@ifpr.sdu.dk
Updates
June 30, 2010: NordForsk awards a grant of 571,239 Norwegian kroner to NNIMIPA for 2010-2013.
The Nordic Network for the Integration of Music Informatics, Performance and Aesthetics (NNIMIPA - www.nnimipa.org) becomes a research network under NordForsk (www.nordforsk.org) on September 1, 2010. Nordforsk contacted chief applicant Cynthia M. Grund on June 30 to announce the award of 571,239 Norwegian kroner (ca. 535,000 Danish kroner/88,000 US dollars) for 2010-2013. The decision was made by the director of NordForsk following an evaluation carried out by a panel of independent experts.
June 23,2010: Summary report chronicling William Westney's tenure as HCA-Academy Guest Professor at SDU now available on the menu tab "HCA Professor 2009-10" here on this site. As the summary report indicates, William Westney's presence as HCA-Academy Guest Professor has put its very exciting imprimatur on many of the acitivities within The Aesthetics of Music and Sound this year, and a heartfelt "thank you" goes to Professor Westney for all he has done to enrich the program. To see all that has transpired - also those activities and events without direct relation to the guest professorship - please see the calendar available on the "Events/Calendar" menu tab on this site (on the calendar itself, click the leftward-pointing arrow next to "Today.")
Now the summer university break is soon upon us, but please keep an eye out for upcoming events and activities within The Aesthetics of Music and Sound on both the "Preview" and "Events/Calendar" menu tabs.
The Aesthetics of Music and Sound wishes everyone a happy, healthy summer filled with wonderful music and sounds!
June 13, 2010: Preview tab added to the site's menu bar in order to inform about upcoming events, also those for which a date has yet to be fixed.
For all that has gone on in May 2010 and previously, please see "Archive for 'Updates' " below and the calendar available on the menu tab "Events/Calendar."
May 31, 2010: For details on the June 2, 2010 Seminar on meaning formation in music from the perspectives of multi-modality and functional linguistics at SDU with William Westney and Cynthia M. Grund, please see here.
Archive
for "Updates": Click here.
(Includes the description of the SDU-IFPR research program The Aesthetics of Music and Sound which initially appeared online in Danish as Musikkens og Lydens Aestetik during the fall of 2006.)
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