Registration open for ‘Listening to music: people, practices and experiences’

24-25 October 2015, the Royal College of Music, London, UK

The conference is held as part of our collaborative AHRC-funded Listening Experience Database (LED) Project www.open.ac.uk/Arts/LED ,which also involves the English Department, KMi and the Royal College of Music.

The keynote speaker will be Professor Simon Frith.

How have people responded to listening to music in their everyday lives? We have access to plenty of professional critical opinion, but what new insights are offered by an examination of the observations and feelings of ordinary listeners – what can we learn about the effects of music, its cultural value and the manner of its consumption in a range of social, historical and geographical contexts?

The LED (Listening Experience Database) Project focuses on the building and interrogation of a large database of personal listening experiences, with the aim of establishing a more robust evidential base for the exploration of such questions. As we come to the end of the first phase of the project, the conference is an opportunity to take stock of progress to date, to look ahead to future developments, and – crucially – to examine some of the themes and approaches to the study of music that may be supported by the mass of evidence of listening experiences that the database is accumulating.

For further information including the detailed programme and how to register, please go to http://led.kmi.open.ac.uk/node/106/

Please feel free to address any queries to the conference organisers, Helen Barlow and Simon Brown, at arts-listening-experience@open.ac.uk