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Music Theory Publications Research

Arvo Pärt Analyses published by Cambridge University Press

Pleasing to see my ‘postcard’ analyses of Arvo Pärt’s Beatitudes and Spiegel Im Spiegel published in Andrew Shenton’s fine new work Arvo Pärt’s Resonant Texts (Cambridge University Press).

Here they are without explanation.

 

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Data Sonification Events Lectures & Presentations Music Research

Sound Asleep at the Royal Society of Medicine

I’ll be keynote speaker-erm-ing at the Royal Asociety of Medicine on Tuesday 4th September at the Royal Society of Medicine, London. 

More details here and at the link above:

Join us as we explore the links between sleep, sleep disorders and all forms of art, literature, and music including modern digital media.

We will look at the effect of music in the sleeping brain, the portrayal of sleep and sleep disorders within works of art, the perils and pleasures of sleep apps and their effect on the public perception of sleep and the literature of dreams.

You will learn to:

  • Understand public perception of sleep and sleep disorders and the role that the arts play
  • The effect of specific musical frequencies upon the sleeping brain
  • The impact of modern digital media upon sleep and circadian rhythm
  • The portrayal of sleep and dream within art, literature, and film
Categories
Data Sonification Music Research Science TV & Media

Sound Asleep Documentary by the National Film and Theatre School

Sound Asleep was filmed by Jake Davison, Kate Wallace, Josephine Hannon and Megan Brown. They interviewed Professor Morten Kringelbach, a neuroscientist at the University of Oxford, and Professor Milton Mermikides, a composer guitarist and music theorist.

Jake explains: “The film is about the discovery of newly described changes in brain activity during sleep by Professor Kringelbach and his team, and how conversion of these findings to music could provide a useful diagnostic tool and possibly a therapeutic for sleep disorder treatment. We decided to cover this story because, in the age of smartphones, tablets and a 24/7 world, the quality of our sleep is decreasing and its importance is often overlooked. This new model of sleep brain activity developed by Professor Kringelbach and his team, as well as his collaboration with Professor Milton Mermikides to produce musical compositions from this data, will help us understand the mechanism of sleep better and therefore allow us to improve our own sleep. Both the ground-breaking nature of this research and the unorthodox method of utilising music to potentially unlock more discoveries seemed intriguing to us and something that needed to be heard about

Categories
Music

Keynote In Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts

The keynote presentation ‘Plucked from Thin Air’ on improvisation and the guitar, was presented as part of the International Guitar Research Centre’s 2019 Conference at the Hong Kong Academy of the Performing Arts on Tuesday 16th July 2019 to an international cohort of guitar scholars and practitioners. Borges, Coltrane and m-finity.

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