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Background
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 seven 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). 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 Commuication, 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 subset 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 contactwith 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 high number of unusually versatile and experienced people in the milieus suggested above continually experience each other’s work and expertise in the context of NTSMB, The online journal JMM: The Journal of Music and Meaning[3], the ISMIR[4] and CMMR[5] conferences, etc.
The Aesthetics of Music and Sound also has the strength of the geographical proximity of the three 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.
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Institute of Philosophy,
Education and the Study
of Religions
Research Director for
The Aesthetics of
Music and Sound:
Cynthia M. Grund
cmgrund@ifpr.sdu.dk
Updates
March 7, 2010: .pdf-version of the program for Music, Meaning and Gesture - including schedule, lecture descriptions and readings - is now available.
Please click here.
February 27, 2010: Norwegian coverage of NNIMIPA.
On February 22 2010, the Norwegian cultural site www.kulturkompasset.com began running a story here after the NNIMIPA: Nordic Network for the Integration of Music Informatics, Performance an Aesthetics coordination meeting in Oslo at the Department of Musicology, during which William Westney gave a concert, an Un-Master Class and participated in a variety of motion-capture experiments designed to shed light on the role of gesture in musical performance.
February 22, 2010: New comprehensive website for NNIMIPA: Nordic Network for the Integration of MusicInformatics, Performance and Aesthetics.
For more information regarding NNIMIPA: Nordic Network for the Integration of Music Informatics, Performance and Aesthetics, the network behind Music, Meaning and Gesture, please see www.nnimipa.org.
February 21, 2010: Course schedule now up for NordPlus-sponsored Nordic Master's Course on Music, Meaning and Gesture, SDU-Odense March 22-26, 2010.
After a productive coordination meeting in Oslo February 18-19, there is now a course schedule available here for Music, Meaning and Gesture. Please check regularly for updated information.
February 15, 2010: Televised documentary "Music and Meaning: Duets and Dialogues" with WILLIAM WESTNEY and CYNTHIA M. GRUND.
During the week of February 15-February 22, 2010, ALT-Aabenraa Lokal TV will be airing "Music and Meaning: Duets and Dialogues" with H.C. Andersen Guest Professor William Westney and Cynthia M. Grund, Research Director for The Aesthetics of Music and Sound (AMS). To view the documentary on ALTV's homepage, please click here. This program includes interviews with Westney and Grund, gives an overview of the activities of AMS, tells the story behind William Westney's connection with the Institute of Philosophy, Education and the Study of Religions at The University of Southern Denmark (SDU), and includes clips from the conference held at SDU-Odense on November 6, 2009: Art and/or Entertainment? The Fifth Anniversary Conference on Philosophy and Popular Culture.
February 8, 2010: Televised documentary on the Un-Master Class with WILLIAM WESTNEY.
The Aesthetics of Music and Sound (AMS) hopes that everyone has experienced a good start to the spring semester, 2010. We are pleased to present more television coverage of the activities of William Westney during his tenure as H.C. Andersen Guest Professor her at the Institute of Philosophy, Education and the Study of Religions at SDU 2009-2010. This time it is a documentary about William Westney's Un-Master Class, filmed at Alsion Concert Hall in Sønderborg November 24, 2009 and broadcast for the first time on ALT-Aabenraa Lokal TV during the week of February 8, 2010. To view the documentary, please click here in order to access the segment directly on ALT's homepage.
To keep up with what is going on in AMS during the spring semester of 2010, please keep and eye on the "Events" page - you can click here - for details as these become available.
January 5, 2010: Televised concert with WILLIAM WESTNEY.
The Aesthetics of Music and Sound wishes everyone a very Happy New Year and is pleased to bring you a New Year's concert. ALT-Aabenraa Lokal TV has broadcast a concert with H.C. Andersen Guest Professor William Westney recorded live on November 24, 2009 at Alsion Concert Hall, Sønderborg. To view the program as a pdf-file, please click here. To see and hear the concert, please click here. The broadcast is of the concert in its entirety and divided into two parts. The first part contains music by Haydn, Fauré, Liszt, Harburg/Arlen, and Arlen as well as the first piece by Gershwin. The second part contains the Gershwin/Wild Fantasy on Porgy and Bess and the Burgmüller encore.
November 30, 2009: TV interview with WILLIAM WESTNEY.
ALT-Aabenraa Lokal TV has broadcast the first of a series of interviews with H.C. Andersen Guest Professor William Westney. To view the clip, please click 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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