Category: Event

On Friday 3rd November, the Science Museum hosts an interdisciplinary workshop on ‘language describing sound / sound emulating language’

Info and registration: bit.ly/SoundTalking

Sound Talking is a one-day event at the London Science Museum that seeks to explore the complex relationships between language and sound, both historically and in the present day. It aims to identify the perspectives and methodologies of current research in the ever-widening field of sound studies, and to locate productive interactions between disciplines.

Bringing together audio engineers, psychiatrists, linguists, musicologists, and historians of literature and medicine, we will be asking questions about sound as a point of linguistic engagement. We will consider the terminology used to discuss sound, the invention of words that capture sonic experience, and the use and manipulation of sound to emulate linguistic descriptions. Talks will address singing voice research, the history of onomatopoeias, new music production tools, auditory neuroscience, sounds in literature, and the sounds of the insane asylum.

Speakers:

– Ian Rawes (London Sound Survey)

– Melissa Dickson (University of Oxford)

– Jonathan Andrews (Newcastle University)

– Maria Chait (UCL Ear Institute)

– David Howard (Royal Holloway University of London)

– Brecht De Man (Queen Mary University of London)

– Mandy Parnell (Black Saloon Studios)

– Trevor Cox (Salford University)

For more information, visit bit.ly/SoundTalking or contact the workshop chairs:

Melissa Dickson <melissa.dickson@ell.ox.ac.uk>

Brecht De Man <b.deman@qmul.ac.uk> 

Hot on the tails of our recent post about the BRAAM, comes an announcement of a one day workshop exploring the influence of the work of Hans Zimmer. The workshop looks to be an interesting day of talks taking place at City University.

“Have we reached peak Hans Zimmer?”

Wednesday 25/10, 4-6 pm
City, University of London
Music Department
College Building, room AG08
280 St John St, London EC1V 4PB

Jordan Hoffman’s recent article in The Guardian asks what many media composers are inwardly thinking: have we reached peak Hans Zimmer? The film composer has, along with his numerous acolytes, inadvertently altered what every blockbuster is supposed to sound like these days with propulsive, repetitive themes, timbral motifs, and increasing use of ‘shepard tones’. Nicholas Reyland likens the rapid spread of Zimmer’s particular style and aesthetics to ‘a McDonalds or a Starbucks colonising the world’s high streets and displacing local variety with generic conformity and a profitably limited product range developed, through hyper-efficient processes, from a few highly standardised ingredients’ (Reyland, 2015: 122). With Zimmer’s company, Remote Control, having provided many of today’s top screen composers their big break in the industry, many perpetuating their mentor’s scoring tropes, Hoffman questions, ‘maybe it’s OK to let someone else have a turn from time to time?’ (Hoffman: 2017).

The two articles that will be discussed are:
(1) https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2017/sep/18/hans-zimmer-blade-runner-2049-film-composer
(2) REYLAND, Nicholas. Corporate Classicism and the Metaphysical Style, in: MSMI 9/2 (2015), pp. 115-130.

The K-Music Festival is a part of the 2017-18 Korea/UK season, they have commissioned some exciting new collaborations with international artists from across the musical spectrum.

The festival begins on Fri 15 Sept. and runs until Weds 25 Oct. across London.

We open with Black String & Kathryn Tickell at the Union Chapel on the 15th. At the Vortex, daegeum player (bamboo flute), Hyelim Kim, performs with exciting rising star, Alice Zawadzki and composer/ musician, Woojae Park, is joined by Japanese drummer Shogo Yoshii and British Indian composer Soumik Datta for a special one-off concert at Rich Mix, and six more amazing concerts follow until 25 October.

For tickets: serious.org.uk/events/series/k-music

2017 K-Music Festival brochure: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8nc0sawvtpgdjnv/0713_KMusic_2017_REVISED_v2_14072017.pdf?dl=0

For more information: www.kccuk.org.uk

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Sound Design students are invited to attend the opening concert, Black String & Kathryn Tickell, at Union Chapel on 15th Sept. Email your tutor for details.