Uploaded July 2019 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
crosstowntraffic2018.wordpress.com
This presentation took place as part of the conference Crosstown Traffic: Popular Music Theory and Practice, which was hosted by The University of Huddersfield from September 3 - 5 2018. This event combined the IASPM UK&Ireland Biennial Conference, the 13th Art of Record Production Conference (ARP), an ISMMS conference, and the additional participation of Dancecult.
A recurrent theme within popular music studies has been discussion of how the field can integrate different disciplines and professions, for example exploring both music and its context; involving both practitioners and researchers; and encouraging interdisciplinary and collaborative work. Many different issues make such approaches challenging, and various different popular music focused subject organisations have developed somewhat independently of one another. This conference brought four such groups together, to exchange knowledge, collaborate, and encourage crosstalk.
/// SUPPORT
Popular Music Studies Research Group (PMSRG), University of Huddersfield research.hud.ac.uk/pmsrg/#
Centre for Music, Culture and Identity (CMCI), University of Huddersfield
research.hud.ac.uk/institutes-centres/cmci
The International Association for the Study of Popular Music UK and Ireland Branch (IASPM UK & Ireland)
iaspm.org.uk
Association for the Study of the Art of Record Production (ASARP)
artofrecordproduction.com
Dancecult Research Network (DRN) studies into electronic dance music culture
dancecult-research.net
International Society for Metal Music Studies (ISMMS)
metalstudies.org
/// ORGANIZERS
IASPM UK&I: Rupert Till
ARP: Katia Isakoff, Shara Rambarran
ISMMS: Karl Spracklen
Dancecult: Graham St. John
University of Huddersfield: Jan Herbst, Austin Moore, Lisa Colton, Toby Martin, Catherine Haworth, Mark Mynett
/// CREDITS
This online project was edited, collated, and made available online by Chris McConnell, Jack Zissell, and Colin Frank.
/// PRESENTATION DETAILS
Following the Distributors: Syco Systems and the Selling of Musical Instruments
Paul Harkins - Lecturer of Music, Edinburgh Napier University
Email: p.harkins@napier.ac.uk
/// ABSTRACT
Since the 1980s and 1990s, scholars in Science and Technology Studies (STS) and, more specifically, those adopting the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) approach have been investigating ‘the user-technology nexus’. This continued a shift in the historiography of technologies from a focus on the designers of technologies towards the contexts of use and ‘the co-construction’ or ‘mutual shaping’ of technologies and their users. In his study of the Minimoog and its adoption as an instrument in rock, Trevor Pinch writes that ‘it is sellers who tie the world of use to the world of design and manufacture. Sellers are ‘boundary shifters’. They are the true ‘missing masses’ of technology studies’ (2003, p. 270). He was referring to David Van Koevering, one of the individuals responsible for developing a market for analogue synthesizers.
At the end of the 1970s, Peter Vogel of Fairlight Instruments in Sydney, Australia demonstrated a digital synthesizer to Peter Gabriel during the recording of his third studio album. Along with his cousin, Stephen Paine, Gabriel started a distribution company called Syco Systems, which became the sole agents of the Fairlight CMI in the UK. Using interviews with the distributors at Syco Systems, this chapter shows how they connected the engineering worlds of its designers with the musical worlds of its users. It tells a story about how the use of the Fairlight CMI as a sampler rather than a synthesizer was shaped by the marketing strategies of its distributors and conflicted with the original objectives of its designers.
crosstowntraffic2018.wordpress.com
This presentation took place as part of the conference Crosstown Traffic: Popular Music Theory and Practice, which was hosted by The University of Huddersfield from September 3 - 5 2018. This event combined the IASPM UK&Ireland Biennial Conference, the 13th Art of Record Production Conference (ARP), an ISMMS conference, and the additional participation of Dancecult.
A recurrent theme within popular music studies has been discussion of how the field can integrate different disciplines and professions, for example exploring both music and its context; involving both practitioners and researchers; and encouraging interdisciplinary and collaborative work. Many different issues make such approaches challenging, and various different popular music focused subject organisations have developed somewhat independently of one another. This conference brought four such groups together, to exchange knowledge, collaborate, and encourage crosstalk.
/// SUPPORT
Popular Music Studies Research Group (PMSRG), University of Huddersfield research.hud.ac.uk/pmsrg/#
Centre for Music, Culture and Identity (CMCI), University of Huddersfield
research.hud.ac.uk/institutes-centres/cmci
The International Association for the Study of Popular Music UK and Ireland Branch (IASPM UK & Ireland)
iaspm.org.uk
Association for the Study of the Art of Record Production (ASARP)
artofrecordproduction.com
Dancecult Research Network (DRN) studies into electronic dance music culture
dancecult-research.net
International Society for Metal Music Studies (ISMMS)
metalstudies.org
/// ORGANIZERS
IASPM UK&I: Rupert Till
ARP: Katia Isakoff, Shara Rambarran
ISMMS: Karl Spracklen
Dancecult: Graham St. John
University of Huddersfield: Jan Herbst, Austin Moore, Lisa Colton, Toby Martin, Catherine Haworth, Mark Mynett
/// CREDITS
This online project was edited, collated, and made available online by Chris McConnell, Jack Zissell, and Colin Frank.
/// PRESENTATION DETAILS
Following the Distributors: Syco Systems and the Selling of Musical Instruments
Paul Harkins - Lecturer of Music, Edinburgh Napier University
Email: p.harkins@napier.ac.uk
/// ABSTRACT
Since the 1980s and 1990s, scholars in Science and Technology Studies (STS) and, more specifically, those adopting the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) approach have been investigating ‘the user-technology nexus’. This continued a shift in the historiography of technologies from a focus on the designers of technologies towards the contexts of use and ‘the co-construction’ or ‘mutual shaping’ of technologies and their users. In his study of the Minimoog and its adoption as an instrument in rock, Trevor Pinch writes that ‘it is sellers who tie the world of use to the world of design and manufacture. Sellers are ‘boundary shifters’. They are the true ‘missing masses’ of technology studies’ (2003, p. 270). He was referring to David Van Koevering, one of the individuals responsible for developing a market for analogue synthesizers.
At the end of the 1970s, Peter Vogel of Fairlight Instruments in Sydney, Australia demonstrated a digital synthesizer to Peter Gabriel during the recording of his third studio album. Along with his cousin, Stephen Paine, Gabriel started a distribution company called Syco Systems, which became the sole agents of the Fairlight CMI in the UK. Using interviews with the distributors at Syco Systems, this chapter shows how they connected the engineering worlds of its designers with the musical worlds of its users. It tells a story about how the use of the Fairlight CMI as a sampler rather than a synthesizer was shaped by the marketing strategies of its distributors and conflicted with the original objectives of its designers.
