Digital Commons Network^™

Mediating Sonic Worlds: Critical Approaches To Boundary Objects In Sound-Driven Design, Stefano Delle Monache, Nicolas Misdariis, Elif Özcan, Daniel Hug, Sara Lenzi, Sandra Pauletto, Davide Rocchesso, Simone Spagnol

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This theme critically examines boundary objects – work arrangements, artefacts and representations facilitating cooperation across diverse social groups [1, 2] – at the intersection of sound and design. Our fundamental question is: how effectively can objects informed or defined by sound and listening fulfil this important role in design [3]? Sound-driven design [4, 5] addresses complex socio-technological challenges induced by sound to design for sonic habitability: positive auditory experiences that enhance well-being, foster social connection, and promote a more harmonious relationship between humans, their technologies, and their environments [6]. Sonic boundary objects leverage sound and listening to structure information and …

Designing The Echo. Practices For Oral Heritage In The Digital Age, Ilaria Bollati, Luisa Collina, Alice Biancardi

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Oral heritage is inherently unstable: unlike written records, it persists through repetition and reinterpretation rather than through the conservation of a stable object. In post-digital cultural heritage contexts, safeguarding oral memories therefore cannot be reduced to storing audio files; it requires the socio-technical conditions to be designed that make voices interpretable, discoverable, and reactivatable. This paper develops and applies a three-phase framework ̶ Listening / Composing / Amplifying ̶ as an analytical and methodological lens for tracing how oral material is collected, translated into an questionable structure, and returned to the public through differentiated formats. The paper grounds the framework …

Co-Designing Culture: A Grounded Theory Of Participatory Practice In Indian Folk Music, Abhinav Agrawal, Mudit Chaturvedi, Gaurang Agrawal

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Prevailing accounts of co-design remain anchored in Western formal practice. This study repositions Indian folk music as a culturally embedded site of collaborative design. Drawing on Murphy’s anthropology of design and a grounded theory approach, we analysed 1,621 coded segments from interviews with 23 first-generation folk artists across 14 Indian states. We show that musicians function as cultural designers who translate lived experience and shared moral economies into adaptive musical forms through participatory routines: community observation, collective ideation, performance-based prototyping, and iterative calibration through audience feedback. We formalise these dynamics in the Cultural Co-Design Flow model, illuminating how layered semantics, …

Reimagining Body–Instrument Relations Through Feminist Design Practice: Reflections On An E-Textile Musical Interface, Qiaosheng Lyu, Ryo Ikeshiro

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper explores how e-textile musical interface can reimagine the relationship between body and instrument from a feminist perspective. Drawing on a practice-based research project, the study examines how soft, deformable materials and embodied interaction can challenge the masculine-coded logic of control that dominates digital musical instrument (DMI) design. Constructed from knitted conductive textiles, the interface functions both as musical controller and prostheses that redistributes agency between performer and instrument. Through design practice, reflective performance, and a somatic experiment with another performer, the research investigates the entangled relationship between performer and instrument from a feminist perspective. The findings suggest that …

Umcur 2026 Program Pdf

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

This program includes the schedule for oral presentations and posters.

Dissecting Word And Song: Observing The Interplay Between Linguistic Analysis And Ethnomusicology, Dashiell Elliot Schindler

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Ethnomusicology is a subfield within cultural ethnography that aims to provide detailed, descriptive analysis on contemporary music culture, applying cross cultural comparison to trace musical lineages and identify sounds significant to a select society. The field serves as an interdisciplinary measure to accurately index musical styles that serve as a cultural marker to the heritage to which they are ascribed. Linguistic analysis aspires to many of the same goals. It is one of the four major disciplines within anthropology, and has its sights focused critically on the examination of language in its spoken form. Linguists apply research methods such as …

An Exploration Of Irish-American Identity Through Music And Oral History, Rylee Kay Houser

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

An Exploration of Irish-American Identity through Music and Oral History

The “Irish Jaunting Car” was described by Kevin Shannon of Butte, Montana as a traditional Irish tune played in the Ceili saloons. For Shannon a Ceili simply meant to play music. For musical historians it is more commonly described as a dance or music session of the home or pubs. Common of many Irish traditional tunes, there is an emphasis on placenames:

From Roscommon to Kildare

From Dublin down to Castle Bar

From there to County Clare

From Cork to Limerick and Athlone

Then home by Mullingar

You can view …

New Music And New Instruments: The Development Of The Electric Bass Guitar, Braxton Algood

Student Scholar Symposium

The sound of the modern electric bass has become ubiquitous in music across multiple genres. With the emergence of jazz music in the 1930s, upright bassists like Jimmy Blanton sought to create a sonic space that exploited the resonance in the low register of the traditional double bass, but was more rhythmic and percussive than the instrument’s traditional role. This desire for a percussive string instrument that had the sound of the upright bass—and might also be more portable—led to the creation of Leo Fender’s first electric bass guitar in 1951. By the end of the 1950s, the electric bass …

Post-Tonal Pedagogy In The Music Of György Ligeti, Easton Ball

Student Scholar Symposium

Post-tonal piano literature remains unpopular with many modern performers due to a perceived lack of technical approachability. As a result, a wealth of post-tonal keyboard music passes into obscurity, never reaching modern audiences. Despite the preconception that post-tonal music lacks formal and harmonic structure, one can assign order to elements within these compositions both for purposes of improving pedagogy and engendering familiarity with the literature. My research aims to demonstrate one process of elucidating the relative accessibility of post-tonal literature for keyboard by means of an analysis of a selection of György Ligeti’s Études pour piano. Because this material often …

It Sounds Sustainable: Practices In Designing Sound For Sustainability, Georgios Marentakis, Doriana Dal Palù

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Design for sustainability has received significant attention in the past years. Start-ing from green design, the focus gradually shifted towards eco-design, the circu-lar economy, and sustainable development. Meanwhile, design for pro-environmental behavior highlighted the importance of designing for a sustaina-ble use phase of products. Sound design encompasses several practices such as in sound for film, radio and podcasting, sound for interaction and games, and prod-uct sound design. Sound is an important element of any experience and can con-vey several emotional and aesthetic product qualities. The relationship between designing sound and designing for sustainability, however, has not received much attention. Motivated …

Out Of The Frying Pan And Into The Fire: Food As Community Archives In Ireland, Ella Padden

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

Food permeates every aspect of life; there is no class or culture that does not eat, no society that has not developed its own cuisine. Since 2010, twenty-nine entries related to food have been added to the UNESCO Representative list of Intangible Cultural Heritage, designating food as a complex marker of cultural heritage. This paper argues that as archives seek to preserve and steward culture, they must consider how that includes food records. Food records in Ireland are decentralized, and few in number, leaving a gap in cultural repositories. Through semi-structured interviews, this thesis analyses the interactions between archivists and …

“When White Men And Indians United Shall Praise:” Indigenous Inclusion In The Hartford Music Company, Savannah N. Skaggs

ATU Scholars Symposium

The Hartford Music Company and Institute of Hartford, Arkansas has attracted increasing academic interest, particularly within the last twenty years. This southern gospel music publishing company and singing school based in southern Sebastian County published a collection of shape note hymnals which boasted some of the genre’s most prolific literature. Though a growing number of Arkansans are learning that these gospel staples came from their own hill country, many do not realize that several of these songs were premiered by or recorded by Indigenous people. While this may not initially seem particularly impactful, this genre developed its own distinct identity …

María Grever: Influence Through Mexican Folk And Classical Romantic Techniques And Ideals In ‘A Una Ola.’, Alexandria C. Ellis

ATU Scholars Symposium

In the last 25 years, there has been a resurgence in Latin American ethnomusicology. This means that, while interest continues to grow, there are several gaps, especially when it comes to the contributions of women. Interestingly, some of these gaps surround the popular Mexican composer María Grever. This includes the lack of information on the variety of sources she gathered inspiration from for composition. Through analyzing Grever's compositional style, especially in the bolero ‘A Una Ola,’or ‘To a Wave,’ I will examine the relationship that Grever employs between the classical Romantic approach and Latin American techniques, especially Mexican folk. While …

Musical Play: Ethnomusicology In Childhood, Grace Lefler

Student Research Symposium

What is Musical Play, and why does it matter?

• Musical play is voluntary, improvised, and fun.
• It functions to allow children, especially immigrant children, to express emotions, enter the playframe, and engage in cooperative play.
• Musical play lets children pretend without high social risks, lowering anxiety.

Five Thousand Years Of Egyptian Double-Pipes And Musical Cultural Influences, Samuel T. Holtkamp

ATU Scholars Symposium

Ancient Egypt was one of the earliest of human societies to pursue the development of music, and many of the musical concepts they pioneered over five-thousand years ago are still in use. Along with the preservation of musical ideas, certain ancient Egyptian instruments have also stood the test of time, through both preservation and evolution. However, the development of these instruments from their ancient to modern forms is sparsely discussed. Along with this, virtually no research explores the evolution of these instrument forms from a chronological context. This paper seeks to investigate and chronologize forms of the ancient Egyptian double-pipe, …

2022 Symposium On Education In Entertainment And Engineering, Mary K. Pillotte, Rich Dionne

Symposium on Education in Entertainment and Engineering

No abstract provided.

Preserving Irish Smoked Salmon: Food Producers, Cultural Heritage, And Environmental Conservation, Malia Guyer-Stevens

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

This research argues that the bottom-up heritagization of smoked salmon by Irish smoked salmon producers is an integral piece in the movement to protect wild Atlantic salmon in Irish waters. Wild Atlantic salmon in Ireland have transformed over the centuries from mythological figure to luxury export, and today into national food heritage thanks to the efforts of smoked salmon producers. This designation transforms Irish salmon from a wild animal into a symbol of Ireland’s historic ties to their coastal regions, an embodiment of traditional food practices, and projects the fish’s importance into the future. However, wild Irish salmon face extinction …

Moving Beyond World Music: An Exploration Of Non-Western Music Cataloging Practices In Higher Education And Where To Go From Here, Alastair L. Canavan

New Librarianship Symposia Series: Fall 2021

The term “world music” has been used for decades as a catchall genre to describe any form of music outside of Western classical. As a byproduct of the eurocentrism pervasive throughout academia, its use furthers a bubble that others or ignores Non-Western cultures and their music. By examining the public-facing catalogs of 13 university libraries across 10 different countries to determine to what extent Non-Western music is included in their collections, how it is cataloged, and if the term “world music” is used to do so, the specific cataloging practices and norms that perpetuate a bias toward Western classical music …

Contemporary Monacan Nation Identity Expression: A Music And Cultural Arts Study, Gretchen Cline, Katherine Morehouse

Liberty University Research Week

Graduate

Three Minute Thesis

Ja Rusyn Byl (I Am Rusyn): Household Folk Music As Resistance To Oppression, Spencer Mcneill

Undergraduate Research and Scholarship Symposium

The Rusyns are a people indigenous to the Carpathian Mountains and its surrounding areas. Despite attempts by the Ukrainian government and surrounding nations to silently erase Rusyn culture from history, the Rusyn people have a distinct identity independent from that of any bordering nation. This unique identity is best outlined through Rusyn folk songs which depict pastoral images of the Carpathian homeland and patriotic tales of Rusyn ancestry. Much work to date has already been done documenting post Velvet Revolution revival of Rusyn culture. Because of this, I will instead focus on the lesser-known time prior and leading up to …

Contemporary Monacan Nation Identity Expression: A Music And Cultural Arts Study, Gretchen Cline, Katherine Morehouse

Liberty University Research Week

Graduate

Applied

Songs Of The Sea And The Sailor: Demystifying The Mythology Of British Sailing Culture, Henry Strobel

Undergraduate Research and Scholarship Symposium

Sea shanties have generally been accepted as the main relic of the culture of British sailors: a mythology that permeates the 19th and 20th century describing the harsh, unforgiving and yet in many ways romanticized life at sea. The repertoire of this time was eventually written down and catalogued by folk music collectors such as Cecil J. Sharp, who were hoping to record and preserve the British identity for generations to come. However, in researching the etymology of these songs as well as the first-hand accounts of sailors, there is a significantly greater layer of complexity to this history than …

Ray Browne Conference For Popular Culture Studies 2021 Program, Bowling Green State University

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies (2015-2021)

No abstract provided.

Ray Browne Conference For Popular Culture Studies 2021 Poster, Bowling Green State University

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies (2015-2021)

No abstract provided.

2019 Symposium On Education In Entertainment And Engineering, Mary K. Pillotte, Rich Dionne

Symposium on Education in Entertainment and Engineering

No abstract provided.

Artful Design For Positive Design: A Case Study In Vr, Jack Atherton

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This article presents the philosophy of artful design as a viable lens for achieving the aims of subjective well-being set forth by the framework of positive design. Artful design is a design philosophy that presents both theoretical and pragmatic guidance to designers, offered via design principles intended to address human flourishing and humanistic values. First, we present several artful design principles, organizing these into a few categories. Next, we provide a case study of a virtual reality experience. We first comment on how its design was motivated by the aforementioned artful design principles. Then, we show how the virtual reality …

Panel Discussion: Active Learning With Objects / Moderator: Ed Vermue, Angela Vanden Elzen, Danielle Skeehan, Joseph W. Ho, Jennifer Fraser, Ed Vermue

Teaching and Learning with Objects for Colleges Symposium for Librarians, Archivists, and Community Curators

The panel will be comprised of library and faculty leaders discussing creative methodologies in objects-based pedagogy inside and outside of the classroom.

Symposium 2020 Presenter List, Calvin Institute Of Christian Worship

Symposium on Worship Archive

Brief bios of presenters at the 2020 Calvin Symposium on Worship

The Strategies And Risks Of Performing Citizenship And Rights Through Music, Carolin Mueller

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

My work explores the capacity of cultural producers to perform “insurgent citizenship,” a term theorized by James Holsten (2008) to describe how the peripheries of social organization can propel alternative modes of civic participation, through music. I utilize Engin Isin’s performative dimension of citizenship (2017) to investigate such forms of insurgent citizenship as they evolve in social and cultural peripheries of the contemporary arts and culture industry in the city of Dresden, Germany to identify the pathways they open to socio-political participation and autonomy for refugees.

While Germany understands itself as a nation of culture, cultural policy unevenly addresses the …

Hate Music On Youtube: The Dark Side Of Advancing Digital Freedom In Myanmar, Heather Maclachlan

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The International Fact-Finding Mission of the United Nations has condemned Myanmar’s treatment of Rohingya people as one of the world’s worst instances of ethnic cleansing, calling it “genocidal in intent.” The Rohingya are only one of many Muslim communities in Myanmar, a number of which have been subject to violent attacks by Buddhists in recent years (Wade 2017). This presentation explains the role that music plays in fostering anti-Muslim prejudice in the country’s majority Buddhist population. I present an analysis of the lyrics and accompanying videos of a corpus of recently recorded songs, all available on Youtube, and argue that …