Montreal

Nice place, if a little cold, wet and snowing. Reminds me a little of New Zealand/ Queenstown in many ways . . . Spent some time with the folks at McGill's Schulich School of Music.

Old music school

New music school

Dean, Don McLean showed me through some of the recording studios:

API Console

Mutimedia room and soundstage

I also met with Sean Ferguson, a composer and Director of CIRMMT (Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology). They house six, what they term 'research axes', and each of which have dedicated labs and resources.

Must fly, (literally). Now on to Leeds and dreadful weather, I believe. Still, looking forward to catching up with friends at Sixth Annual Art of Record Production Conference.

Lowell & New York

Traveling once more, and a very good experience and entry into the US via San Francisco. Nice people, if still very busy and slightly confusing . . .
Now completed the first leg of the tour, first to Lowell MA - beautiful little town north of Cambridge and Boston.
Caught up with the good folks of UMass Lowell Music and their wonderful hospitality. They run some terrific degree programs in music education, sound recording technology, music business and performance. Many thanks to Alex Ruthmann and John Shirley:

[A great night out at Boston's Lennox Hotel, w/ an amazing glass of 'The Balvenie']

Then on to New York to catch up with Nora Farrell (now teaching part of the year in our Bachelor of Music Technology program) and Bill Duckworth who's also now supervising some of our QCRC PhD candidates. Thanks for a delicious Thanksgivings Day dinner (that's pumpkin pie, clementines and roasted chestnuts . .!)
Or, as they also call it here – Turkey Day! Pics from the spectacular Macey's Thanksgivings Day Parade:

Flying out today, onward and upward to Montreal & McGill University's Schulich School of Music. Looking forward to it.

Overseas Itinerary Nov-Dec 2010

Just about to hop on a flight for the US. Very much looking forward to seeing old friends again, making new ones, and of course engaging in the various events.

21 Nov – 23 Nov
UMass Lowell, Massachusetts. www.uml.edu/College/arts_sciences/music. MOU follow-up, curriculum review. Prof Wil Moylan, Dr Alex Ruthmann, Dr Alan Williams

24 Nov – 27 Nov
New York. HDR supervision development, music technology history, practice-led research, and Thanksgiving Day. Monroe Street Music, Prof Bill Duckworth, Nora Farrell, Steve Newcomb, Prof Susan-Schmidt Horning.

27 Nov – 1 Dec
Montreal, McGill University www.mcgill.ca/music PentaCon benchmarking, collaboration.
Prof Don McLean. CIRMMT (Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology). www.cirmmt.mcgill.ca

2 Dec – 5 Dec
UK, Leeds Metropolitan. www.leedsmet.ac.uk/inn/index2.htm
Presenting paper on 'Remixing modernism' at the 6th International Art of Record Production Conference. www.artofrecordproduction.com/content/view/233/127.

5 Dec – 8 Dec
UK, Manchester. Royal Northern College of Music. www.rncm.ac.uk Research: www.rncm.ac.uk/content/blogsection/8/52/
Staff seminars, HDR development. Prof Jonty Stockdale, Professor Richard Wistreich, Dr Jane Ginsborg.

8 Dec – 11 Dec
London & Guildford, Kingston University. fass.kingston.ac.uk/schools/performance/music
Seminars, practice-led music research. Dr Frank Millward.

No doubt will blog more and send pics over the following weeks.

Monograph

It all began when in my 2009 university performance evaluation rounds, a senior colleague suggested that it might be time for me to think about a ‘monograph’, (I guess considered de rigeur for someone who is a professor in the university ecology). That usually means,

. . . In order to gain respect within the academic community and tenure at a major university, an academic must publish monographs over the course of his or her life. These scholarly treatises provide evidence that the academic is carrying out research in the field and analyzing already published information. A monograph usually brings new light to the subject, and it may contain breakthrough research. It also further refines the academic specialty of the author, and establishes the author as an authority on the topic. [Wisegeek]

. . . It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself. An author may therefore declare his own work to be a monograph by intent, or a reader or critic might define a given text as a monograph for the purpose of analysis. Normally it is used for a work intended to be a complete and detailed exposition of a substantial subject at a level more advanced than that of a textbook. [Wikipedia]

However, like many ‘artists in the academy’, I once did very different professional work before joining the university later in life, transitioning from what they now call a ‘portfolio career’ in music. That is, freelancing around musical performance genres, recording sessions, teaching and composition /production commissions. It was this background that invited my first masterclass in film sound track work at an Australian music conservatorium, later to be augmented by the teaching of classes and eventually a tenured position in 1996.

After working for some 25 years in a often cut-throat industry, I was quickly taken by higher education, the idea of ‘knowledge transfer’, and the new young musicians eager to learn.

Also similar to many of my contemporaries, I found myself drifting further and further away from practicing musicianship, simply because of academic demands – the PhD, grants, administration, strategic planning, email work flow, etc. Odd too, in the light of so much talk and gathering of ‘research equivalent outputs’ right across the university sector in Australia – From the so-called Strand Report, Research in the Creative Arts of 1998, to failed Cat J & H research collections, to the Howard government’s Research Quality Framework (RQF), to the now first Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) collection in 2010 (mirroring the UK’s RAE rankings, in place for many years now).

Despite these initiatives and chasing the idea of ‘practice-based research’, many academic artists struggle to keep up the chops and/or significant ‘alternate’ research outputs (artworks, new music, films etc), given the high teaching and administration demands of the variously ever-interconnected, ‘flexible’, policy-driven, compliance-oriented, document-oriented modern university life. Perhaps easier for some (like myself) to produce and count journal articles and conference papers – in writing, and/or immerse myself in collaborations producing albums for academic colleagues. [See my publications].

Not that I’m complaining. To the contrary, working in the university sector over the last 15 years has also taught me a lot about reflection, analysis and research; about challenging my assumptions and intellect. Here then, again recalling my colleague’s suggestion to ‘think about a monograph’, I want to consider more about the shape for such an undertaking:

mon·o·graph   [mon-uh-graf, -grahf] –noun
1. a treatise on a particular subject, as a biographical study or study of the works of one artist.
2. a highly detailed and thoroughly documented study or paper written about a limited area of a subject or field of inquiry: scholarly monographs on medieval pigments.
3. an account of a single thing or class of things, as of a species of organism.
[Dictionary.com]

I want to flesh out some of what is emerging as a plan for the next 18 months or so. But broadly, as way to fuse and re-examine my music in the light of the intervening 15 years of experience, and to think about the project in terms of a range of practice-led research products, one end point being the production of an original album of music entitled Monograph.

Next blog entry, I think I should back up a little and give a little run-down on The Story so Far, which bought me to this point.

The Art of Record Production conference, Lowell USA

Presently visiting the USA, via LA, to Boston then to Lowell for the 4th annual international Art of Record Production conference.


This year, the conference was hosted by UMass Lowell's music department and the home of Prof William Moylan, the author of one of the world's leading music technology education texts, Understanding and Crafting the Mix, Second Edition: The Art of Recording.

One of the highlights was the opening keynote from industry legend record producer Phil Ramone (14 Grammys!), who also has just launched his new book, Making Records: The Scenes Behind the Music. He spoke at length with wonderful personal tales about his work with Dylan, Streisand, Sinatra, Quincy Jones, Ray Charles, Billy Joel, on and on . . .

Another highlight was Lowel's 'critical listening room' where conference delegates were treated to amazing sound and analysis work with both famous recordings, as well as exceptional work form their graduate (Masters) students.

A discussion panel featured Dj Spooky (Paul Miller), Steve D'Agostino, David Hewitt, Mark Rubel on the theme 'The Recording Studio as Musical Instrument'.

I presented a paper entitled On disintermediated culture, education, and craft and it was teriffic to meet UMass's Wil Moylan and Alan Williams, as well as old friends from the UK (I saw them last at the first 2005 APR conference in London).

Speaking of old friends, following the ARP conference here, I'll then be heading down to New York city for a week, to catch up with William Duckworth and Nora Farrell. Bill and Nora were in Australia last 2007 and collaborated with the Queensland Conservatorium research centre on the fabulous iOrpheus - Art Among Us. Will be plotting for iOrpheus II.

Transforming HASS Research

Just back from a trip to (freezing) Canberra. 

Here, the Australian government is undertaking a review of the National Collaborative Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) Roadmap, and which has generated a proposal for a new research capability in the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS), titled ‘Transforming HASS Research’. [see The Australian /Higher Education article 20 August 2008, 'Research to cut through cackle']

The details of this proposal were included in the recently released Exposure Draft of 2008 Strategic Roadmap for Australian Research Infrastructure. As a result, the Expert Working Group for HASS which produced this proposal met in a one day workshop to assist with this process at Old Canberra House, the ANU.

From the Arts perspective (the 'A' in HASS), this means: how might eResearch in sectors such as Film, Animation, Art & Design, Music and Sound, Theatre & Dance - benefit from $.5 bil. of ICT network and grid computing research infrastructure? For example: greater interdisciplinary collaboration; curated media archives as 'data sets' to promote and drive new research questions and outputs; grid computing which has the capacity to drive (real) time-based works, nationally & internationally. 

Among the discussions and break out panels for Humanites, the Creative & Performing Arts and Social Sciences representatives, an international guest speaker, Chad Kainz (Senior Director for Academic Technologies, University of Chicago) gave an enthralling presentation.

Chad is one of the program directors for the Mellon Foundation’s ‘Bamboo Project’ -- a planning project aimed at developing shared technology services for research in the arts and humanities in the US, with important parallels to the Australian HASS-NCRIS developments.

This is a significant development, but one that requires more discussion and consultation within the relevant sectors before planning proceeds much further. Next, there will be a widening of the steering group and reference group(s) to include greater representation from Art & Design, Theatre & Dance, Music & Sound, Film & Animation. Looking forward to more & seeing what comes next . . .

Melbourne - NMIT

Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of visiting and presenting a masterclass at the North Melbourne Institute of TAFE (NMIT). A terrific heritage set of building located in the north of Melbourne, in Fairfield.


NMIT have a range of music courses there : from music industry, to sound production, to a Bachelor of Australian Popular Music. They also have a range of other programs in media broadcast, theatre and television. I had the chance to tour around and see their recording studios and labs, and also had a chance to present to many students and staff from these programs in their concert hall.

I presented a piece entitled 'Music, Technology and the Future' as part of one of their courses, Online Music Distribution. In this, I talked about the history of music technology, as a way of 'looking back', perhaps 'to see forward', based on a recent paper, Audio files, audiophiles and the reflective musician.

Looking forward to seeing some NMIT graduates here at he Con in the near future. And, many thanks to Glenn & Fiona Blair for their wonderful hospitality at NMIT. 

The Electronic Century

Some nice reflections and history by Joel Chadabe – composer, author, interactive music systems pioneer and president of the Electronic Music Foundation. Celebrating the 100th anniversary of electronic music, in this four part series published by Electronic Musician, Chadabe explores the instruments, artistic ideas, business concepts, musicians and entrepreneurs, and technical breakthroughs of the century—from the first technological achievements to the synthesizers of tomorrow.

The Rangertone was an early tape recorder developed by Colonel Richard Ranger, who played a key role in bringing German recording technology to the United States at the end of World War II.

The focus throughout the series is on the technologies that have been used by musicians to expand on the resources available in traditional, acoustic instruments. Each article documents important musical compositions that have employed these technologies and provides a reference list of texts about this first era of electronic music technology.

Part I: The Electronic Century – Beginnings
Part II: Tales of the Tape
Part III: Computers and Analog Synthesizers
Part IV: The Seeds of the Future

Pierre Schaeffer established the first electronic-music studio in France in the 1940s. Schaeffer is shown here in 1952 with two versions of the phonogene, a variable-speed tape recorder built by Jacques Poullin.

Optimizing Speaker Performance in Your Studio

The editors of Mix Magazine, Electronic Musician and Remix have posted a Webinar, “Optimizing Speaker Performance in your Studio,” hosted by veteran acoustic consultant Bob Hodas who has tuned many professional recording studios around the world, from Abbey Road to the Record Plant to Lucasfilm.

In this webcast, Hodas explains how to set up stereo speakers and the listening position in a given room to optimize system performance. He shares tips for selecting acoustic treatments and determining where those treatments should be placed, he explains techniques for choosing and applying equalization, and demonstrates how to improve accuracy with EQ measurement tools.

You can sign up for the free webcast here,  while Hodas also has some other studio tips on his website.

The Ear Phonautograph

Crazy story. For a long time, people like da Vinci, Keppler and others tried to figure out a way to capture sound - something which had been ephemeral for millennia. Problem was, they spent a long time looking at this the wrong way and trying to model recording ideas on the basis on sound *transmission*, that is, via the horn, from the violin, the mouth etc. The 'penny dropped' when finally someone thought about this in terms of *reception*, then everything changed quickly. (For a wonderful exploration of this and other histories about sound, see Jonathan Sterne's book, 'The Audible Past').

In any case, the ear did it. And the first recorders were these cyborg-like devices which actually used the human ear (from cadavers, I assume) attached to needle and horn contraptions to do primitive recordings. Called the Ear Phonoautograph it looked like this:

Bell, Blake and Edison had been messing about with these things in the 1870s, but after a few years, some sanity prevailed, and the US phonograph (with wax cylinder) then the UK phonograph (with record turntable) were developed a few years later. Of course the rest is history, and 'Thomas A. Edison Incorporated' massified the phonograph/record combination across the US, with corporate spin promoting authenticity and fidelity as the essential values for consumers. Edison’s 1916 premier of the phonograph ‘performing’ a duet with a live singer to a 2,500-strong audience in Carnegie Hall prompted the New York Tribune to gush,

Mme. Rappold stepped forward, and leaning one arm affectionately on the phonograph began to sing an air from “Tosca”. The phonograph also began to sing . . at the top of its mechanical lungs, with exactly the same accent and intonation, even stopping to take a breath in unison with the prima donna. Occasionally the singer would stop and the phonograph carried on in the air alone. When the mechanical voice ended Mme. Rappold sang. The fascination for the audience lay in guessing whether Mme. Rappold or the phonograph was at work, or whether they were singing together.

For over a decade, similar events were staged across the USA, apparently convincing millions of people that it was actually impossible to distinguish the singer’s living voice from its re-creation in the instrument.

Anyway, back to the Ear Phonoautograph story - while it seemed that this abberation only occured for a few short years prior to the phonograph, on 27 march The New York Times did its own gushing in “Researchers Play Tune Recorded Before Edison". Scientists at the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory in the US converted a recording (a 'phonautogram') of a woman singing the folk song Au Clair de la Lune, well before Edison’s supposedly first-ever recording of the spoken Mary Had a Little Lamb. The much older work was made on another one of these damn cyborg things - two decades before, but in France. The ear boggles . . .

Finally, on the BCC's Radio 4 service, news reader Charlotte Green just couldn't take this kafuffle in the US about the old recording from France too seriously:

For much more detail about this and related sound recording matters, see this great blog piece over at musikwissenbloggenschaft.blogspot.com

Upcoming research events in 2008

I'm looking forward to an interesting calendar this year, with a number of events that should provide terrific opportunities to present and engage with colleagues from around the world, in disciplines as diverse as law, cultural theory, education, creativity, sound engineering and music-making of all kinds. I aim to keep a live blog going here throughout, and will paste texts, links & media but  for now, here's some information about the various events. I hope to see some of you there!

• Research-based Learning and Public Scholarship seminar. 9–12.30, 23 May, Brisbane, hosted by the Griffith Institute for Higher Education at the Eco Centre at Griffith University Nathan campus.

Research-based learning (RBL) has been shown to engage students and motivate staff as it brings together the key strands of learning, teaching and research. This workshop will discuss techniques for linking teaching and research and the connection between RBL and public scholarship in addressing research problems in community settings. I'll be presenting on a panel of academic staff to share experiences and strategies for engaging in RBL and public scholarship at Griffith. For more information, see www.griffith.edu.au/gihe/

• Building an Australasian Commons conference. 9-5, 24 June, Creative Industries Precinct, Kelvin Grove, Brisbane. 
  

A showcase of what is going on in Australia and where to from here. With key note addresses form music industry, educators and professional musicians, the event will also feature workshops and panels about case studies, jurisdiction reports and new models for artistic practice. I'll be working on a panel with CCi's Phil Graham, Julian Knowles and others from industry. For more information, see creativecommons.org.au/australasiancommon

• Creating Value: Between Commerce and Commons. International conference of the ARC Centre for Excellence in Creative Industries and Innovation. 25 - 27 June, Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre.
  

This conference showcases research projects, and features papers from academic, business, creative or public policy specialists on many aspects of value-creation in the context of creative industries and innovation. Keynote speakers will include Henry Jenkins (MIT), Mark Deuze (Indiana, US) and Norman Jackson (Surrey SCEPTrE). I'll be presenting a paper in the Law stream on the lock down of IP in sound recordings within a university teaching and research context, called 'who's doing the stealing?'. I'll also be presenting and participating in two panels, one on 'Creative Capital and Workforce Futures', the other on 'Legal Issues for Social Networks and Creating Public Value'. For more information, see www.cci.edu.au/events/creating-value-between-commerce-and-commons

• The World Conference of the International Society of Music Education (ISME 2008). 20-25 July, Bologna Italy.
  

A swag of us from the Queensland Conservatorium will be heading off to Italy to present research papers on music-making and education, but also to network and catch-up with with other musicians form around the world, including the UK, the USA, Finland, Sweden and of course Italy. I'm presenting a paper I wrote with Matt Hitchock about 'the hidden curriculum' of social networking which is working so well for us in music tech at the Con. I'll also be working on a panel with colleages Göran Folkestad (Malmö Academy of Music) and Miika Salavuo (Sibelius Academy) & Don Lebler (Griffith Popular Music) called 'Music Education 2.0', and sharing much of what we have learned about creativity, music and the web 2 environment. For more information, see www.isme.org/2008

• The 4th International Art of Record Production Conference. 14-16 November 2008, Lowell, Massachusetts, USA
  

The conference will be hosted by Prof William Moylan (author of 'Understanding and Crafting the Mix: The Art of Recording') at the University of Massachusetts Lowell's music department and in its state-of-the-art music technology facilities. The four streams of papers and panels are on The Studio As Musical Instrument, Recording Practice And Performance, Production And The Listener and The Empowered Artist (this last topic, where I'll be presenting a paper about technology). The keynote speaker will be music industry legend, Phil Ramone, & UMass Lowell’s exceptional recording studios, control rooms and critical listening room will also be featured in an on-going “Unraveling the Mix” mixing / production session where an active multitrack mix (stereo or surround) sits in the control room for evaluation, hosted by the mix engineer. Advanced recording and processing strategies are discussed and demonstrated in isolation and in the context of the mix on a API Vision console capable of simultaneous surround and two channel mixing. For more information, see www.artofrecordproduction.com/content/view/75/109/

And finally in December, we look forward to hosting the Apple University Consortium CreateWorld 2008 again at Griffith's South Bank campus. Featuring presentations and works from digital artists from all over Australia and the US. More information and web site and this comes to hand.

Music licencing locks down innovation

Originally intended to protect the intellectual property rights of creators, music copyright laws have been enforced across the Australian university sector - all pay substantial licensing fees to collection societies on a per-institution basis. These licenses only allow for on-demand streaming of commercial music while restricting any copying or sharing of databases across the sector.

Music copyright laws are imposed on learning, teaching and research under the same restrictions that apply to radio stations, night-clubs and bars.

As noted recently in The Australian by Brian Fitzgerald, in developing innovation policy for the 21st century “we need to think closely about the shape and role of copyright law and policy”. Consider the effect of current music licensing laws in developing creativity, innovation and future Australian musicians through the following examples of what is now occurring in university faculties:

Only licensed works can be utilised and individual academics must undertake detailed compliance checks to ensure that any material they wish to present to students is legal. The catalogue has proved to be highly limited, the core of which is centred around popular culture and even in this domain, the use of music from the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Queen or ACDC is prohibited. Further, recent statistics indicate that up to 80% of essential learning and research material is unavailable through these licenses. This includes works from classical, jazz, world, experimental and other culturally diverse traditions.

Therefore music students lack significant opportunities to analyse recordings in order to develop their craft, to develop wider cultural and historical understanding and to innovate by ‘building on the shoulders of giants’. Where self-directed creativity and craft comes into play, this too is limited by complex legal arrangements. Seemingly out-of-copyright classical works are often restricted by laws around the use of music scores for performance and recording. In the case of jazz and rhythm and blues, while excellence requires interpretation and improvisation, the performance and adoption of these forms is locked down by the copyright terms of ‘seventy years plus the life of the author’.

The only space that remans is for 100% original work, composed, performed or recorded by university staff and students. While often providing admirable examples of creativity and tenacity, many endeavours can suffer from insufficient contextual development given the restrictions.

Music licensing in universities reflects a catalogue that is dominated by The Big Four international labels – EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner. Many local productions may comprise derivative works and mimic what is marketed as ‘quality’ in (often American) popular culture, the net effect prophetically outlined in Australia’s first and only national cultural policy document, Creative Nation (1994). Its thrust was much in tune with the then rising wave of the dot-com boom:

Many Australians say that just now Australian culture is under unprecedented threat. The revolution in information technology and the wave of global mass culture potentially threatens that which is distinctly our own. In doing so it threatens our identity and the opportunities this and future generations will have for intellectual and artistic growth and self-expression . . [we must] ensure that what used to be called a cultural desert does not become a sea of globalised and homogenised mediocrity.

The Federal Government has a significant opportunity to revisit these ideals in its reviews of the National Innovation System, the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy roadmap, and in its forthcoming Australia 2020 Summit (the latter puzzlingly lacking any reference to the music industry, an oversight which presumably will be addressed by the Minister for the Arts).

Australia’s innovation system already possesses significant broadband infrastructure across its universities which is crippled less by lack of speed (for the moment), but more so through lack of judgement in response to the extra-national domination of copyright law. It is simply a matter of legislation.

. . . Miikka Salavuo has more thoughts about 'copyright in online music education' and the current situation in Finland at the Sibelius Academy.