Introduction
The seminar is set up to celebrate the achievements of Professor Rolf Inge God?y and continue discussing some of the topics he has contributed to throughout his career. After studying musicology, philosophy, and the history of ideas at the University of Oslo, Professor God?y moved on to obtain diplomas in music theory and composition from the Norwegian Academy of Music. He then worked as a freelance composer for several years before returning to academia to undertake a PhD in musicology. As a professor of music theory at the University of Oslo for almost 30 years he has taught and supervised several generations of students in a broad range of musicological sub-disciplines.
During most of his academic career, Professor God?y has developed Pierre Schaeffer's concept of the sonic object into his embodied sound and music theory. During the last decades, he has also been central in establishing the fourMs Lab as a world-leading infrastructure for research into music-related body motion. He is a principal investigator at RITMO Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Rhythm, Time, and Motion, a Norwegian Centre of Excellence, until his retirement.
Sonic Design
Professor God?y has over the years proposed the concept of sonic design as an amalgam between artistic and scientific approaches to the creation and study of (musical) sound. On one side, sonic design includes the practices of synthesising entirely new sounds or recording, editing and mixing acoustic sounds. Over the years, these practices have merged with composition and orchestration techniques and various music production methods to allow for previously unheard of sonic results. In addition to such creative applications, sonic design can also encompass different sonification strategies aiming to create “objective” representations of data through sound.
Underlying all the practical approaches to the creation of sounds for various purposes are several basic research perspectives, including music theory, music perception, embodied cognition, phenomenology, acoustics, cognitive neuroscience, and digital signal processing, to mention just a few. As such, sonic design can be seen as a meeting point between basic and applied research, "soft" and "hard" approaches, and creative and analytic perspectives.
As a longtime practitioner, researcher, teacher, and supervisor, Professor God?y has been central in developing a holistic approach to sonic design, from theory to practice. While much of his early work focused on sound as sound, he has extended his approach to considering the embodied aspects of both the performance and perception of music over the last decades. He is particularly known for his work on Musical Imagery (2001) and Musical Gestures (2010) and has over the last decade focused his attention on sonic and bodily (co)articulations.
Call for participation
For the seminar, we invite contributions that explore the concept of sonic design from different perspectives, including, but not limited to, music theory, composition, production, cognition, phenomenology, embodiment, soundscape studies, rhythm studies, acoustics, sound and music computing, music information retrieval, and new interfaces for musical expression. In particular, we are interested in contributions that discuss sonic design from the perspectives of:
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new theories about (embodied) sonic design
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reflections on approaches to empirical investigations of sonic design
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the role and importance of culture in studies of and practice with sonic design
If you are interested in contributing with a presentation at the seminar, please submit a short abstract (200-300 words) by 15 February 2022.
The plan is to run the seminar in hybrid mode, with participation either in person or online. More information about the practicalities will be posted on this page in due time.
Anthology
Contributors to the seminar will be invited to submit chapters to an edited collection titled Sonic Design, aimed to be published after the seminar.
Contact
If you have any questions, please get in touch with:
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Professor Alexander Refsum Jensenius
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Higher Executive Officer Julie ?derud Danielsen