#169: Magical Incantations
Magical Incantations
I’m Todd L. Burns, and welcome to Music Journalism Insider, a newsletter about music journalism. I highlight some of the best stuff I hear, read, and watch every week; publish news about the industry; and interview writers, scholars, and editors about their work. My goal is to share knowledge, celebrate great work, and expand the idea of what music journalism is—and where it happens. Questions, comments, concerns? You can reach me anytime at music.journalism.insider@gmail.com. And if you’re not already subscribed to the newsletter, you can do so at musicjournalisminsider.com.
Today in the newsletter: Interviews with English broadside ballads expert Patricia Fumerton, blues scholar Julia Simon, and Lucreccia Quintanilla, the co-founder of Liquid Architecture. Plus! Reading recommendations, podcast picks, and much more! But first…
brb deleting a bunch of profiles i’ve written
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Reading List
- Andre Gee says rap lyrics might sink Cash App
- Harmony Holiday celebrates Black music in spring
- Patrick St. Michel goes baseball crazy
- Rock’s Backpages spotlights classic metal articles
- Alexis Petridis looks at the history of speed garage
- Max Dax put together an oral history of the Berlin record shop Hard Wax
- Rich Juzwiak explores Ed Sheeran’s recent commentary on music critics
- Will Pritchard examines the Global Music Vault
- Molly Glentzer reports on the San Antonio Philharmonic
- Ted Gioia wonders: “Where did musicology come from?”
Lede Of The Week
Musicology originated as the study of magical incantations. You probably haven’t heard that before. And for a good reason: They don’t teach this stuff in music schools. - Ted Gioia
Q&A: Patricia Fumerton
Patricia Fumerton is Distinguished Professor of English at University of California, Santa Barbara. At UCSB, she is the director and founder of the Early Modern Center, English Broadside Ballad Archive, and Maker Lab (Print Shop). In this excerpt from our interview, Patricia explains the current focus of her research.
I remain focused on English broadside ballads, c. 1550-1700, which cover just about every topic you can imagine, including LOTS of sex, and have some of the catchiest tunes you could sing, as well as the most eye-catching images. But I also have had a hand in forging a Printing Press Shop at UCSB—which houses the only fully-equipped Gutenberg-style pull press in the UC system. Students are always amazed to discover how much labor and fun it is to set type, ink it, and print their own copy of what they set—by hand, that is, manually on a pull press. I wish I could set music with my typeface, but each note requires its own individual piece of type, and no one I know makes such typeface today.
Why do you find this area of research so interesting?
I am working on popular print (tunes, themes, and images that reach out to the populace) and such research makes me feel connected not only to the person on the street over 400 years ago but able to draw in the person on the street today. Few professors can say that about their work.
How has your approach to your work changed over the past few years, if at all?
I am driven to forge new territories, which is why, in 2017, I worked so hard to ship a printing press from London, England, to Santa Barbara, California, and jump up and down until I got a space to house my print lab. I continue to do the same for EBBA, now as it reaches its fruition, founding a small Endowment, which is only currently $21,000, but will bring in enough in interest to pay to update EBBA’s databases and any facts about the printed ballads archived.
I guess the short answer is that my approach has not changed much over the years—I see unchartered frontiers, and my immediate response is to explore them and make them come alive for students, scholars, and the general public.
Read the full interview with Patricia here.
brb deleting a bunch of tweets
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Podcasts!
- Louder Than a Riot interrogates the male gaze
- Nathan Jolly has launched Listen Carefully
- Dr. Vivian Luong chats about loving music on Her Music Academia
- Julie Carli has some questions for all podcast professionals to ask when considering a new project
- McKenzie Wark joins Rave to the Grave to talk about her new book
Q&A: Julia Simon
Julia Simon is a professor and scholar, as well as a bassist and singer. Her new book is Debt and Redemption in the Blues: The Call for Justice, which “explores concepts of freedom and bondage in the blues and argues that the genre of music explicitly calls for a reckoning while expressing faith in a secular justice to come.” In this excerpt from our interview, Julia talks about her next project.
I am beginning a new book-length project on the politics of mobility in the blues. The book will examine what mobility means from a legal and economic standpoint in the context of African American history, including under slavery and segregation. The historical work will be interwoven with discussions of the blues—both the content and the form. I am fascinated with the problem of music as an ephemeral object that travels. In the context of racialized economic exploitation, debates about ownership and copyright will be central to this project. I am at the very early stage and reading very widely, but the project follows up on questions that I raised in Debt and Redemption. The focus on place/movement also complements the work that I did in [my 2017 book] Time in the Blues.
What would you like to see more of in music-related scholarship right now?
Music-related scholarship seems siloed into distinct fields and modes. The academic world of [ethno]musicology feels very isolated from music journalism and especially the practices of popular music today. The walls are beginning to come down, but I would like to see more exchange and cross-fertilization.
Read the full interview with Julia here.
Trivia Time
Who was on the cover of the first issue of XLR8R?
Bits, Bobs
- gal-dem has closed
- URB has launched a Substack
- The Louis Prima Collection is now open for research in New Orleans
- A new museum exhibition on black metal is on view in Norway
- Katie Bird has started a newsletter
Sure, But Can They Skank?
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Q&A: Lucreccia Quintanilla
Lucreccia Quintanilla is an artist, educator, and co-director of the Naarm (Melbourne) sound org Liquid Architecture, which supports experimental, interdisciplinary, and critical work addressing sound and listening in context. In this excerpt from our interview, Lucreccia explains her research interests.
I am currently interested in styles of collaboration, the possibilities of sound as a malleable and adaptable—but often also so culturally charged—medium.
I am interested in the echo as a phenomenon in sounds, archeoaccoustics, and read everything I possibly can on this topic. I am obsessed with conch shells as instruments and as sculptural objects through pre-Columbian art and through to contemporary times. I am also really interested in Octavia Butler’s work.
Why do you find this area of research so interesting?
I wrote a PhD on the first two interests, so I will speak to the third. I think I am drawn to Octavia Butler’s way of working. This rigorous researching various aspects of the world we live in to then integrate them into this other world that plays with time, and rhythm, and voice. So whilst Octavia Butler is not an area of research per se, what I am interested in is a multidisciplinary way of crafting something. Multi-genre approaches are my area of interest at the moment. I read in one of her many notes, and written in her own handwriting, that Butler was interested in collectivity—a big interest of mine. It was exciting to read. It is interesting to me because, to me, collectivity is everything. It’s where complexity exists and where we, as humans, get interesting.
Read the full interview with Lucreccia here.
Academic Stuff
- New issues: Journal of the Society for American Music, Sound Studies, and Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy
- Robin James is doing a book event for The Future of Rock and Roll: 97X WOXY and the Fight for True Independence
- Call for Chapters: Popular Music Autobiographies: Rereading Musicians and Their Audiences [Proposals due April 30]
- Bang on a Can’s media workshop at MASS MoCA kicks off in July
- Jazz Perspectives is looking for an editor-in-chief
- Video streams from SEM 2022 are now available
The Closing Credits
Thanks for reading! In case you’ve missed any special features, I’ve published a number of them in the newsletter, including articles about music journalism history, what music journalism will be like in 2221, and much more. You can check out all of that here.
I also do a recurring column in the newsletter called Notes On Process. The premise is simple: I share a Google Doc with a music journalist where we go into depth on one of their pieces. It hopefully provides an insight into how music writers do their work. You can check out all editions of Notes On Process here.
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Trivia Time Answer
Sorry, trick question! No one was on the first cover of XLR8R.
A Final Note
Thanks for reading! I make playlists from time to time. Check them out if you’re interested. And full disclosure: my day job is at uDiscover Music, a branded content online magazine owned by Universal Music. This newsletter is not affiliated or sponsored in any way by Universal, and any links that relate to the work of my department will be clearly marked.
Feel free to reach out to me via email at music.journalism.insider@gmail.com. On Twitter, it’s @JournalismMusic. Until next time…