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15th International Meeting of Music and Media

Posted: May 2nd, 2019 | Filed under: Calls for Papers | No Comments »

What has gone with the wind… Over the rainbow?

(About music and memory)

September 25-27, 2019, Sao Paulo, Brazil

In 1939, 80 years ago, the world has been thrilled by the premiere of two cinematographic works: Gone with the wind and The Wizard of Oz. The memorable films, in addition to the direction of Victor Flemming, share another important participation: that of the composer Max Steiner, either in the writing of the soundtrack or in the arrangement of songs. Both the theme of Tara and Over the Rainbow still remain as classics of the repertoire of contemporary artists, occupying the sound landscape and memorial of generation to generation.

Twenty years later, during the 1st. World War, Darius Milhaud arrives in Rio de Janeiro for a diplomatic mission. In contact with the country, his music incorporates sound and musical landscapes: His works not only adopts local genres such as tango, Samba, Maxixe includes excerpts of known pieces, which appear in the form of quotation, as the result of listening. All sorts of music, in concerts, in the soirées street music… Saudades do Brasil, a piano suite consisting of twelve pieces,  is a centenary work and, coincidentally, is strongly related to the studies of music in its many interfaces: By employing this compositional technique, Milhaud not only inscribes in his repertoire the Brazilian musical soundscape in which he lived but also by quoting excerpts from pre-existing pieces, he transforms into memory “the spirit of those days”, to stop beyond the very musical aesthetics he developed (the polytonality), Which wasn’t the composer’s propose, at first, but it was what has become after all.

Much of Milhaud’s work is a memory of music by music. If Over the rainbow can be heard repeatedly in Judy Garland’s voice, on the most different media platforms, by the end of the 19th. century there was no other way to preserve it except for writing (the score). The recording facilities allowed the creation of collections, holdings, which could be stored and catalogued.

The creation of collections and documentary sources is the result of personal or institutional initiatives and, in order to be maintained, public policies are priorities – guaranteeing them for their preservation and continuity of the classification and archiving work. In this sense, the informatics came to boost the relevant work developed by information science through the dissemination of digital platforms. On the other hand, when taken up by less rigid systems, it results in important repercussions. Loosing of the classification criterions or the timid presence of specialists makes Spotify, Deezer and other companies free to offer works in large quantity online not infrequently organized in an incomplete or even unreasonable way. And in another sense, the emergence of channels like Youtube began to allow access to unattainable or unknown materials. At this point, it is worth asking: how can the songs absorbed by these platforms be recognized or found? Are there interests, mechanisms and actions to ensure the incorporation of a broad repertoire to the collections, especially considering the short life of media platforms and formats of the reproductive devices?  No less disturbing is the relationship that is established between file and memory: There are works that will never be transferred from one technology to another, not only due to a marketing decision in order to attend capital demands, but also cultural ones: Culture is a way of memory which, on its turn, implies selection. As the theorists of the School of Tartu point out, the dynamics of memory is processed in the movement of permanence and disposal: the cultures remember forgetting… But they tend, on the other hand, to generate new texts, from the processes of resignification of the pre-existing ones.

From another aspect, we can also highlight the subjectivity of musical memory, either individual or collective: There are works established as places of memory, marking specific or periodized events, establishing bonds with facts to collective life or individual. The importance, the strength of the signs (musicals) of memory can interfere in their duration of memory places.

Finally, mechanisms of an organic nature determine the configuration of the memory. Here, the forms of sensitivity vary by stimuli (or its absence) based on a biological (neuro) system. Here one cannot fail to emphasize its importance in the configuration of the composer’s memory, which forms part of auditory experiences from childhood, the memory that the musician develops (interpretative styles, performance models, etc.), as well as the Memory of listeners which, in turn, is also constituted by an universe of listening acquired throughout life.

The 15th Meeting intends, thus, to bring to the discussion the relationships between memory and music. Memory, as a mechanism of storage and fixation, but also disposal, resignification and generation of new texts; Memory as an activity of the organism, which oscillates and creates semantic processes through various stimuli; Memory as a form of registration and its specific techniques of conservation. Also, the role of the policies and institutions that work with the objective of preserving the musical repertoire of all time are at the centre of the discussions, here proposed.

This year, MusiMid has the participation of professors-doctors Ana Guiomar Rêgo Souza (UFG), Barbara Heller (UNIP), Herom Vargas (Methodist), Magda Clímaco (UFG), Márcia Ramos de Oliveira (UDESC), Mônica Rebecca Ferrari Nunes (ESPM), Priscilla Perazzo ( USCS) as interlocutors, in order to explore the various ways of understanding the memory in its organic aspect and its reverberations in the forms of sensibility and aesthetic creation, as well as in the forms of sociability. To this end, the debates are structured in three thematic axes:

1 Archives, Database, collections:

The selection, organization, and configuration policies of the databases. The role of social actors: governmental and non-governmental institutions in safeguarding and preserving. Discards and dismantling of collections. The role of oblivion and the processes of resignification.

2 A large universal collection? Remembered and forgotten.

Not everything is stored as a file, such as memory. There are choices that determine permanence or forgetfulness, guiding processes of resignification. Platforms such as Spotify and Deezer do not imply the transfer of all works. Furthermore, the transfer of Phonographic Materials has ceased to bring information about the original recording. This thematic axis intends to discuss these implications

3. Memory and music: processes of memory and forgetfulness understood under the biological and neurobiological aspects (from cognition to stimuli of sensory and emotional nature such as traumas, etc.); The cognitive operations that enter the scene in the fixation of memories: subjectivities; Affectivity Bond powers; Musical worms; Hallucinations and altered states of consciousness;  musician and listener memory and their configuration forms.

Modalities of participation:

  • Oral Communications
  • Poster Sessions
  • Audiovisual Sessions

Important Dates:

Call for work: April 9th, May 19th

Selection Result: June 5

Submission of full papers: from the 1st to the 12th of August.

More information (coming soon), on the page: www.doity.com.br/15encontromusimid

Three categories of presentations will be accepted: written texts, posters, and audiovisuals (DVD format). An abstract (200-250 words) must be sent prior to May 13th. Abstracts must be accompanied by a title, 5-10 references, 3-5 keywords, and a biographical note (up to 5 lines). Results will be announced until 5th. June. The authors will be directly notified through Doity platform.

Instructions for submission of full papers:

Written texts:

The full version of the texts (between 10 and 20 pages) should be delivered on the 1st to the 12th of August, already in its final version, with the format of editing and text revision. ALL works submitted within the publication standards and the regulatory deadline will be published in minutes. It should be Noted that the author is responsible for reviewing the text and requesting permission to reproduce images to the copyright holders.

Audiovisual texts: Audiovisual works should be between three and ten minutes, and should be presented in DVD format. It will Consist of a thematic session for modalities of this nature. The final result must contain the entire datasheet.

Registration fee

Additional information

Please contact the email [email protected] or visit the webpage http://www.doity.com.br/15encontromusimid.mus.br



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