Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Dr Paul Harkins' Outputs (58)

Frictions and Restrictions: Domestic Music Making and the Case of Girls Rock School (2024)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Harkins, P. (2024, September). Frictions and Restrictions: Domestic Music Making and the Case of Girls Rock School. Paper presented at IASPM UK & Ireland Conference, University of Newcastle, UK

The use of digital technologies, such as MIDI, Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs), Virtual Studio Technologies (VSTs), sampling software, web-based platforms, and music-making apps, have been implicated in deep changes about how and where popular musi... Read More about Frictions and Restrictions: Domestic Music Making and the Case of Girls Rock School.

‘Have you tried fixing it?’ Repairing (and not Repairing) the Fairlight CMI (2024)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Harkins, P. (2024, June). ‘Have you tried fixing it?’ Repairing (and not Repairing) the Fairlight CMI. Paper presented at Innovation in Music Conference, Kristiania University College, Oslo, Norway

In his study about the continued importance of old technologies, David Edgerton writes that ‘the majority [of scientists and engineers] have always been mainly concerned with the operation and maintenance of things and processes; with the use of thin... Read More about ‘Have you tried fixing it?’ Repairing (and not Repairing) the Fairlight CMI.

‘Keeping the Machines Alive’: Repairing and Maintaining the Fairlight CMI. (2023)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
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 Contribution
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 Contribution
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 Contribution
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 Contribution
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 Contribution
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 Contribution
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 Contribution
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. 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.