Music and Fine Art

Audio units are sound processing plugins, and are one of the elements in many contemporary Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) which have transformed the experience of creating and processing music.

From an early point in my music making career I became fascinated with the idea of being able to modularly personalise my work environment with the use of my favourite third party software. I began creating signal processing chains in the form of presets, to create the effects I wanted and had them easily accessible in my DAW of choice Logic Pro.
While combining chains of third party plugins created a possibility of huge varying combinations of effects that could be considered unique in their organisation in the signal chain and the parameters within those plugins set to values specific to the tasks involved.
The idea of personalised plugins to perform the tasks that I wanted in the studio inspired this project as a way to research the techniques necessary to implement software plugins with the underlying DSP of processes I use on a daily basis.

Since the late 19th Century, public vocalizations in urban spaces have been on the wane, brought about in part through a combination of direct legislation and changes in commerce, most markedly the emergence of digital technology. Moreover, economic inequalities and the privatization of urban space loom large as contributing factors to the expulsion of diverse communities. Although not immune to the above, licensed street markets offer a territory in which diverse and marginalized communities can be present and coalesce. Markets can also act as a voice of resistance be it directly, against urban renewal such as Berwick Street Market, that after much public local outcry survived threat of closure in 2005, as well as wider domestic issues. An example of the latter occurring in 2015, where a crowd of over one-hundred market traders and general public protested and attempted to halt an immigration raid on East Street Market. The Cries of London is an ongoing series of electroacoustic compositions and sound works that draw upon the acoustic ecology of London utilising contemporary ambient recordings of the city’s streets. The project takes inspiration from the 16th Century works of the same title by Thomas Weelkes and Orlando Gibbons that utilise the cries and calls of hawkers and street traders, which provide a glimmer of the urban sound world of Elizabethan London. Like the works of Weelkes and Gibbons, this series centers on the human voice within the city, capturing vocalisations drawn from a variety of contexts, starting with markets, recorded on the streets of London. At its core, The Cries of London is an ode and response to the presence of the human voice within the city where changes in commerce alongside deurbanizing forces of inequality and privatization of public spaces threaten to ‘silence the speech of the city’.

In what ways does listening to music shape everyday perception? Is music particularly effective in promoting shifts in consciousness? Is there any difference perceptually between contemplating one’s surroundings and experiencing a work of art?

Everyday Music Listening is the first book to focus in depth on the detailed nature of music listening episodes as lived mental experiences. Ruth Herbert uses new empirical data to explore the psychological processes involved in everyday music listening scenarios, charting interactions between music, perceiver and environment in a diverse range of real-world contexts. Findings are integrated with insights from a broad range of literature, including consciousness studies and research into altered states of consciousness, as well as ideas from ethology and evolutionary psychology suggesting that a psychobiological capacity for trancing is linked to the origins of making and receiving of art.

The term ‘trance’ is not generally associated with music listening outside ethnomusicological studies of strong experiences, yet ‘hypnotic-like’ involvements in daily life have long been recognized by hypnotherapy researchers. The author argues that multiply distributed attention – prevalent in much contemporary listening– does not necessarily indicate superficial engagement. Music emerges as a particularly effective mediator of experience. Absorption and dissociation, as manifestations of trancing, are self-regulatory processes, often operating at the level of unconscious awareness, that support an individual perception of psychological health.

This fascinating study brings together research and theory from a wide range of fields to provide a new framework for understanding the phenomenology of music listening in a way that will appeal to both specialist academic audiences and a broad general readership.

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A small but significant body of recent research has successfully crossed the boundaries between ethnomusicology and psychology, and both disciplines are demonstrating a
growing interest in charting interactions between music, context and individual
consciousness. The phenomenon of trance is a clear example of the interaction of mind
with specific cultural contexts, and cross-disciplinary approaches would appear highly
relevant to future research. However, outside ethnomusicology and anthropology, despite
the burgeoning field of music and consciousness studies, attitudes towards the constructs
of trance and altered states of consciousness as reputable areas of scholarly enquiry are
somewhat ambivalent. One reason for this is a continued lack of academic consensus over
definitions of the terms ‘trance’ and ‘altered states’. This paper re-assesses the different
ways in which trance has been conceptualised in the literature. It argues that the
continued ethnomusicological focus on high arousal models of trance has led to the
neglect (or exclusion) of other types of trancing, particularly specific instances of
European
American secular trancing, and associated literature. I draw on my own UKbased
study of solitary musical involvement in daily life, which has been informed by
both psychological and ethnomusicological perspectives.
Keywords: Trance; Music; Altered States; Phenomenology; Psychology; Ethnomusicology;
Cross-cultural; Hypnosis

The construct of absorption (effortless engagement) has been the subject of a small number of discipline-specific studies of involvement, including music. This paper reports the results of an empirical project that compared psychological qualities of absorption in everyday music listening scenarios with characteristics of non-music-related involvement. Absorption was located in “real-world” settings, and experiences across different activities in a variety of contexts were tapped as soon as possible after they occurred. The inquiry was designed to test two assumptions that have underpinned previous absorption research: first, that certain activities are inherently particularly absorbing; second, that absorption is best conceptualized primarily as a trait as opposed to a state. Twenty participants kept diaries for two weeks, recording descriptions of involving experiences of any kind. Eight weeks after submitting descriptive reports they completed the Modified Tellegen Absorption Scale (Jamieson, 2005). Diaries indicated that different activities shared a subset of involving features, and confirmed the importance of multi-sensory perception and the imaginative faculty to absorbed experiences. Music may be a particularly effective agent in the facilitation of absorption because it affords multiple potential entry points to involvement (acoustic attributes, source specification, entrainment, emotion, fusion of modalities) and because its semantic malleability makes it adaptable to a variety of circumstances. The MODTAS provided insufficient evidence for establishing correlations between state and trait absorption. It is argued that state and trait divisions are constructs that are inherently problematic.

Dissociative experiences involving music have received little research attention outside the field of ethnomusicology. This paper examines the psychological characteristics of normative dissociation (detachment) across musical and non-musical experiences in ‘real world’, everyday settings. It draws upon a subset of data arising from an empirical project designed to compare transformative shifts of consciousness, with and without music in daily life, and the ways in which use of music may facilitate the processes of dissociation and absorption. Twenty participants kept unstructured diaries for two weeks, recording free descriptions of involving experiences of any kind as soon as possible after their occurrence. All descriptions were subsequently subjected to Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA).

Results suggest that dissociative experiences are a familiar occurrence in everyday life. Diary entries highlight an established practice of actively sought detachment from self, surroundings or activity, suggesting that, together with absorption, the processes of derealization (altered perception of surroundings) and depersonalization (detachment from self) constitute common means of self-regulation in daily life. Music emerges as a particularly versatile facilitator of dissociative experience because of its semantic ambiguity, portability, and the variety of ways in which it may mediate perception, so facilitating an altered relationship to self and environment.

Empirical studies of music listening in everyday life frequently frame individuals' experience of music primarily in terms of emotion and mood. Yet emotions - at least as represented by categorical and dimensional models of emotion - do not account for the totality of subjective experience. This is particularly apparent in the case of a range of so-called 'alternate' or 'altered' states of consciousness including 'flow', aesthetic and spiritual experiences. Some researchers have responded by highlighting the process of absorption (effortless attention) within significant experiences of music. To date however, the role of dissociation (detachment), the counterpart of absorption, has received little research attention outside ethnomusicological accounts of ritualistic trance. This paper explores the importance of dissociation to everyday musical experiences, drawing on findings from the author's past and ongoing empirical studies of psychological processes of everyday involvement with music in 'real-world' UK contexts. Free phenomenological reports from unstructured diaries compiled by participants aged 9-85 indicate dissociation from self, surroundings or activity in conjunction with music is a common occurrence in everyday life, particularly for teenagers. Significantly, a number of experiences appear to possess neither positive nor negative valence, instead functioning to offer a relief from aspects of self (emotion and thought). 
Dissociation and Absorption are accepted characteristics of trance in hypnotherapeutic literature. Results from the data discussed here suggest that moves away from a perceived baseline state of consciousness in conjunction with hearing music in daily life are a common phenomenon and that such experiences may facilitate freedom from emotion.

Empirical studies of music listening in everyday life frequently frame individuals' experience of music primarily in terms of emotion and mood. Yet emotions - at least as represented by categorical and dimensional models of emotion - do not account for the totality of subjective experience. This is particularly apparent in the case of a range of so-called 'alternate' or 'altered' states of consciousness including 'flow', aesthetic and spiritual expe-riences. Some researchers have responded by highlighting the process of absorption (effortless attention) within significant experiences of music. To date however, the role of dissociation (detachment), the counter-part of absorption, has received little research attention outside ethnomusicological accounts of ritualistic trance. This paper explores the importance of dissociation to everyday musical experiences, drawing on find-ings from the author's past and ongoing empirical studies of psychological pro...

Few studies of everyday musical engagement have focused on the subjective 'feel' (phenomenology) of unfolding, lived experience. Additionally, the musical experiences of children and young adolescents are currently under-represented in the literature. This paper constitutes an in-progress report of the preliminary stage of a mixed method three year empirical enquiry, designed to explore psychological characteristics of the subjective experience of young people hearing music in everyday, 'real world' scenarios in the UK. The aims of the preliminary stage were to identify varied modes of listening, to pinpoint whether these are age-related, and to explore the extent to which young people use music as a form of escape (dissociation) from self, activity, or situation. 25 participants (aged 10-18) were interviewed and subsequently kept diaries of their music-listening experiences for two weeks. Data was subjected to Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Key them...

This paper discusses the extent to which Kwaito dance music embodies the socio-cultural practices of urban post-apartheid South Africa. The paper attempts to address the musical and cultural influences behind the conception of the genre; including a look at the significance of technology and the DJ culture in its early developments. The paper will also provide a comparative analysis exemplifying some of the prominent features, both musical and visual, present in Kwaito that demonstrate three pertinent socio-cultural practices of the township youth. The visual analysis is concerned with exploring dance performance and meaning through music videos and further address the significance of dance within the African society. In addition, this paper will seek to understand the genre’s reception during a very significant period in South Africa’s history and a look at the differing views on its enculturation into the society.

The essay discusses the socio-cultural implications of cross-genre musical borrowing in the production of American mainstream ‘pop’ music released post-2015, examining the ‘creative versus commerce’ conflict surrounding modern musical borrowing practices. The essay focuses on the significance and effect of cross-genre musical borrowing on modern ‘pop’ music production practices through exploring the interconnected relationship between developing music technologies and the evolving role of the music producer, giving a brief overview of how improving technologies have benefited modern production practice. It also examines the oligopoly of the American music industry, and indeed the global music industry, and its effect on the consumption practices of mainstream ‘pop’ audience; particularly how the industry practices feed into the ‘hyper-culture’ of the modern society. In addition, the essay concurrently provides an analysis of the different manifestations of musical borrowing in mainstream ‘pop’ music released within the last two years, as well as considering the specific documented American copyright laws, particularly legal and financial issues associated with these manifestations. The time-limit focus in this case is largely due to the fast and constant evolution of what is commercially popular.

From the opening credits to the closing titles, the audio-visual cohesion in a film has evolved to be integral to the viewer for the purpose of understanding the intended narrative and fulfilling any of their expectations and anticipationsof the twenty-first century cinematic experience. This relationship has become increasingly important in light of recent improved developments in film and sound technology, as well as, the expanding imagination and creativity of the new generation of filmmakers (Mancini, 1985: 361). It has no longer become a requirement for a film to have a comprehensive and socio-cultural relevant story line, rather the popular approach has been to use recent technology to create, recreate and enhance images, recorded and otherwise digitally manipulated, that warp and bend the boundaries of “realism” in all its dimensions in cinema (Jordan, 2010: 25). In an attempt to match these new-age multi-dimensional images, filmmakers have sought after a soundtrack that not only influences and modifies the image track but also forms and enriches the intended narrative (Buhler, Neumeyer & Deemer, 2010: 7). No longer is the soundtrack considered to be a superfluous accompaniment to the film but rather, important to understanding the filmmaker’s intentions or, in other words, ‘sound shapes the picture sometimes as much as the picture shapes sound’ (Altman, 1985: 44, Remael, 2012: 258). In this respect, Sfx plays a fundamental role in enhancing what the viewer sees and in some cases exemplifies more about what the image/scene is than the image/scene does. Decades of over-simplification and under-theorization has led to sfx receiving the least critical and scholarly attention even though it provides the greatest opportunity to understand the marriage of the ‘complex interactive systems of visual and aural signs’ that is the film audiovisual medium (Remael, 2012: 257). It is in this that the dissertation aims to research the extent to which, whether positively or negatively, sfx influence the audio-visual relationship in a Sci-Fi film, and consequently our perception of the events occurring in the diegesis of a film in that genre.