MUSIC ANALYSIS TODAY: CRISIS, OR (R)EVOLUTION ?
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE, STRASBOURG
19 - 21 NOVEMBER 2009
CALL FOR PAPERS
Université de Strasbourg Research Group ‘Approches contemporaines de la Création et de la Réflexion artistiques’ Société française d’Analyse musicale
With the support of Institut d’Esthétique des arts et technologies (Université de Paris-1/CNRS), IRCAM (Paris), & GATM (Gruppo Analisi et Teoria musicale, Bologna, Italy)
Musical research in general has undergone considerable transformation in the last decades, as concerns both its object and its methods. The respective breaking up of these, together with the calling into question of traditional approaches in the historical as well as in the theoretical domains have led to a situation amounting, for certain thinkers, to a crisis. However, it may be that beyond this ‘Babelization’ of music studies, a broader disciplinary field is emerging, at once more international and transdisciplinary, the diversity of which reflects an ongoing reconstruction and a transformation of epistemological status. Are we witnessing a global and lasting weakening of all norms, or, on the contrary, a change in dominant ideas and paradigms—but also biases?
This conference proposes to examine some of the orientations which have thus significantly modified analytical practice together with its theoretical foundations, taking as a symbolic reference point the 1989 European Congress in Colmar which sought to map the landscape of music analysis. Since that date, it may be considered that the geography of music analysis has been altered at least in a threefold way by: (i) the emergence of new corpuses, (ii) transformations in modelling, and (iii) the shifting of disciplinary boundaries.
Papers, in English or in French, of 30’ duration each, should develop one or more of the above themes through a non-exclusive, critical approach. Reflexion should be backed up with concrete analytical examples.
Topics may be chosen from the following, although other suggestions will be considered:
– new analytical methods (systematic or mathematic approaches, neo-Riemannian theory, transformational theory, computational musicology, computer-assisted analysis, etc.),
– new corpuses for analysis (improvised, traditional—notably non-Western—music, pop-rock, electro-acoustic music, etc.),
– new domains (performance practice, reception, etc.),
– new supports (visual representations, sound recording, digital support systems, etc.)
– the epistemology of analytical research (history of music analysis, the analysis of analysis, relation of analysis to other musicological approaches or to other disciplines, etc.).
Proposals for individual papers, of no more than 700 words, together with a short CV, should be emailed simultaneously to Mondher Ayari and Xavier Hascher.
The deadline for the submission of proposals is 3 April 2009.
Notification of acceptance will be sent by the end of April. It is intended that the proceedings of the conference shall be published.
