peer-reviewing

when I received a paper for peer-reviewing this afternoon, due to the recent lengthy and heated so-called off-topic discussions in auditory list, I was more worried about ethicality of paper rather than anything else! luckily for me, Google didn't discover anything for me to raise eyebrow.

Believe it or not, I like keeping the code of practice, so I will be strictly confidential about it unless you are the editorial guys!

On a serious note though, I think it will be an extremely useful experience for my own research. Thanks a lot to the Newcastle team taking me on board.

artists and Marmite effect

in the process of colouring the forthcoming College-based blog page, Becca Watts has done an interesting questionnaire (some of which are also shared at the bottom of page here) including about the "Marmite", which in turns has made me to think about artists and Marmite effect.

so Marmite is a Brit thing: they say you either love it or hate it (personally, I am not too keen on that brown stuff, but that's not an issue here). but Marmite is also a British social icon, especially with regard to the British reception of artists.

I mean, for instance, some of you guys might remember how an academic specialising comedy had defended Russell Brand with the Marmite effect, when Brand and Jonathan Ross made inappropriate remarks during the on-air show of Radio 2 last year.

now returning to the British reception of Brahms' cello sonatas recordings, a so-called Marmite effect towards du Pre's performance in the British listening culture can be perceived at the time of release by du Pre and Barenboim in late 1960s. That is, music critics either loved the du Pre's rendition or hated it. Her tempo, in particular, was the most criticised aspect of all. Three decades on, what effect do you think du Pre's tempi has provided to the cello performance traditions of repertoire? my empirical findings (presented in the C4DM seminar, modeling expression ) suggest that the so-called Marmite effect could have played a crucial role in influencing the expressive timing of the Menuet of E minor sonata, because a fair similarity is found between timing fluctuation of du Pre and of most of 80s-90s recorded artists.

changing sound of music

there were days that making lectures available in online seem way too generous: I am thinking of online lectures of David Huron on empiricism and postmodernism and Justin London on musical metre , for instance.

still, owing to the reserved character of Brits in general and musicologists in particular (don't get me wrong, I personally find the Britishnesses including the reserved character pretty sweet), I have always thought that it would be a snowball's chance in hell to see a day that a distinguished Brit musicologist would publish a book-length material in online. Dan Leech-Wilkinson, however, has proved me wrong by putting his long-awaited book Changing Sound of Music in online.

cool stuff!

linked to gold.ac.uk

I heard yesterday that having spotted by the College officials, they intend to make a link of this blog to the Goldsmiths web. They encourage "to continue blogging in exactly the same as before" regardless to linking to gold.ac.uk -- so, no pressure then!

Basically, if you were looking for what the varieties of independent Goldsmithsian opinions are like, the new linking page would lead you where to check them out! I will make the linking page available here, once I hear more.