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All Outputs (37)

‘Keeping the Machines Alive’: Repairing and Maintaining the Fairlight CMI. (2023)
Presentation / Conference
Harkins, P. (2023, June). ‘Keeping the Machines Alive’: Repairing and Maintaining the Fairlight CMI. Paper presented at Innovation In Music Conference 2023, Edinburgh, UK

The story of the Fairlight CMI is a story of misuse. Designed primarily as a digital synthesizer for the imitation of acoustic instruments, it was used in the worlds of popular music to sample the sounds of everyday life and pre-existing recordings.... Read More about ‘Keeping the Machines Alive’: Repairing and Maintaining the Fairlight CMI..

Crisis? What Crisis? Carbonism, Solutionism, and the (Un)sustainability of Music (2023)
Presentation / Conference
Harkins, P. (2023, June). Crisis? What Crisis? Carbonism, Solutionism, and the (Un)sustainability of Music. Paper presented at XXII Biennial IASPM International Conference, Minneapolis, Minnesota, US

In June 2021, the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research published ‘Super-Low Carbon Live Music: a roadmap for the UK live music sector to play its part in tackling the climate crisis’. Commissioned by the Bristol trip-hop group, Massive Attack,... Read More about Crisis? What Crisis? Carbonism, Solutionism, and the (Un)sustainability of Music.

Beyond Sustainability: The Music Industries Declare Emergency on Planet Earth – or do they? (2022)
Presentation / Conference
Harkins, P. (2022, August). Beyond Sustainability: The Music Industries Declare Emergency on Planet Earth – or do they?. Paper presented at IASPM UK and Ireland Conference, University of Liverpool

In December last year, a number of record labels based in the UK signed the Music Climate Pact in which they committed to reducing the emission of greenhouse gases by 50% by 2030 and achieving net zero by 2050. Signatories of the pact included the th... Read More about Beyond Sustainability: The Music Industries Declare Emergency on Planet Earth – or do they?.

Finding the Female Users: A Feminist Historiography of the Fairlight CMI (2022)
Presentation / Conference
Harkins, P., & Blackburn, M. (2022, June). Finding the Female Users: A Feminist Historiography of the Fairlight CMI. Paper presented at Rethinking the History of Technology-based Music, University of Huddersfield

The story of the Fairlight CMI, a digital synthesizer that was designed in Sydney, Australia in the mid-to-late 1970s, is dominated by a few high-profile male users: Peter Gabriel, Herbie Hancock, and Stevie Wonder. In both academic and popular histo... Read More about Finding the Female Users: A Feminist Historiography of the Fairlight CMI.

(Dis)locating Democratization: Music Technologies in Practice (2021)
Journal Article
Harkins, P., & Prior, N. (2021). (Dis)locating Democratization: Music Technologies in Practice. Popular Music and Society, 45(1), 84-103. https://doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2021.1984023

This article examines the concept of democratization and explains why it has been applied in unhelpful ways to the study of music. We focus on three examples to illustrate the real-world complexities involved in the adoption of new technologies that... Read More about (Dis)locating Democratization: Music Technologies in Practice.

(Dis)locating Democratisation: Grime, Digitalisation, and 'The PlayStation Generation' (2021)
Presentation / Conference
Harkins, P. (2021, May). (Dis)locating Democratisation: Grime, Digitalisation, and 'The PlayStation Generation'. Paper presented at Annual Symposium of Music Scholars in Finland, Online

For many commentators over the last two decades, digitisation represents nothing short of a watershed moment in how music is produced, stored, and consumed. In this paper, I address claims around the democratisation of music making with the advent of... Read More about (Dis)locating Democratisation: Grime, Digitalisation, and 'The PlayStation Generation'.

'Need we Say More': Contemporary Responses to the Fairlight CMI (2020)
Presentation / Conference
Harkins, P. (2020, December). 'Need we Say More': Contemporary Responses to the Fairlight CMI. Paper presented at Sound Instruments and Sonic Cultures: An Interdisciplinary Conference, National Science & Media Museum, Bradford/Online

Often described as the first digital sampler, the Fairlight Computer Musical Instrument (CMI) was primarily a digital synthesizer and computer workstation. Launched in 1979, it was one of the technologies that were used to re-shape the practices of m... Read More about 'Need we Say More': Contemporary Responses to the Fairlight CMI.

(Dis)locating Democratisation: Grime, Digitalisation, and ‘The PlayStation Generation’ (2020)
Presentation / Conference
Harkins, P. (2020, May). (Dis)locating Democratisation: Grime, Digitalisation, and ‘The PlayStation Generation’. Paper presented at London Calling IASPM UK & Ireland Conference, Online/University of West London

For many commentators over the last two decades, digitisation represents nothing short of a watershed moment in how music is produced, stored, and consumed. Just as the era of the fluid, non-degradable perfect digital copy has undermined the ability... Read More about (Dis)locating Democratisation: Grime, Digitalisation, and ‘The PlayStation Generation’.

Following the Auteurs: Kate Bush and the Fairlight CMI (2019)
Presentation / Conference
Harkins, P. (2019, December). Following the Auteurs: Kate Bush and the Fairlight CMI. Paper presented at This Woman's Work: A Kate Bush Symposium, Edinburgh College of Art

I’m a big fan of Kate Bush’s music but my priority in this paper is not to praise her many achievements. Instead, I want to look at how she was using music technologies in the 1980s and, more specifically, her relationship with the Fairlight Computer... Read More about Following the Auteurs: Kate Bush and the Fairlight CMI.

Digital Sampling: The Design and Use of Music Technologies (2019)
Book
Harkins, P. (2019). Digital Sampling: The Design and Use of Music Technologies. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351209960

Digital Sampling is the first book about the design and use of sampling technologies that have shaped the sounds of popular music since the 1980s. Written in two parts, Digital Sampling begins with an exploration of the Fairlight CMI and how artis... Read More about Digital Sampling: The Design and Use of Music Technologies.

Can Music be Digitised? Samplers, Democratisation, and 'the Digital Age' (2018)
Presentation / Conference
Harkins, P. (2018, December). Can Music be Digitised? Samplers, Democratisation, and 'the Digital Age'. Paper presented at Music, Digitalisation, and Democracy

Rather than an abrupt or revolutionary shift from analogue to digital, I will argue in this paper that the use of digital technologies such as samplers have been part of a more gradual process of socio-musical change. As well as examining the argumen... Read More about Can Music be Digitised? Samplers, Democratisation, and 'the Digital Age'.

Following the Distributors: Syco Systems and the Selling of Musical Instruments. (2018)
Presentation / Conference
Harkins, P. (2018, September). Following the Distributors: Syco Systems and the Selling of Musical Instruments. Paper presented at Art of Record Production (ARP)/International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) UK & Ireland Branch Conference

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 th... Read More about Following the Distributors: Syco Systems and the Selling of Musical Instruments..

Becoming a User? Science & Technology Studies (STS) and the Design/Use of Digital Synthesizer/Sampling Instruments (2018)
Presentation / Conference
Harkins, P. (2018, June). Becoming a User? Science & Technology Studies (STS) and the Design/Use of Digital Synthesizer/Sampling Instruments. Presented at Workshop on Objects of Electronic Sound & Music in Museums

This provocation will give an overview of a research project about the historical and contemporary uses of digital synthesizer/sampling instruments. One of the problems I faced when developing a theoretical and conceptual framework was that the field... Read More about Becoming a User? Science & Technology Studies (STS) and the Design/Use of Digital Synthesizer/Sampling Instruments.

Questioning the Digital Revolution: Continuity and Change in the Design and Use of Music Technologies (2017)
Presentation / Conference
Harkins, P. (2017, June). Questioning the Digital Revolution: Continuity and Change in the Design and Use of Music Technologies. Paper presented at 19th Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, Kassel, Germany

The use of digital technologies since the 1980s have changed the way in which music is stored, distributed, and consumed. The use of digital technologies has also reshaped the processes of musical production. This paper, though, challenges the view t... Read More about Questioning the Digital Revolution: Continuity and Change in the Design and Use of Music Technologies.

Following the Fairlight CMI and its Users: The Digital Reproduction of 'Real' Instruments and Sounds (2017)
Presentation / Conference
Harkins, P. (2017, June). Following the Fairlight CMI and its Users: The Digital Reproduction of 'Real' Instruments and Sounds. Paper presented at Galpin Society/AMIS Conference on Musical Instruments, The University of Edinburgh

This paper will focus on the Fairlight Computer Musical Instrument (CMI), which is generally regarded as the first commercially available digital sampler. However, its designers, Peter Vogel and Kim Ryrie, were primarily interested in the use of digi... Read More about Following the Fairlight CMI and its Users: The Digital Reproduction of 'Real' Instruments and Sounds.

'The Rest is History': Writing a History of Music Technologies and their Users (2017)
Presentation / Conference
Harkins, P. (2017, March). 'The Rest is History': Writing a History of Music Technologies and their Users. Presented at Burgundy School of Business Research Seminar, University of Burgundy, Dijon

The socio-musical practice of sampling is closely associated with the re-use of pre-existing sound recordings and the technological processes of looping. These practices, based on appropriation and repetition, have been particularly common within the... Read More about 'The Rest is History': Writing a History of Music Technologies and their Users.