The idea of Network Jamming has been developed over a 10 year period alongside the development of the jam2jam software. Over that time the iterations of software and interface development from jam2jam Gray through to the present variety of jam2jam AV has perhaps changed the ways players can interact with music and visual content, making it more accessible for younger participants and for those whose abilities inhibit intellectual or physical interaction. In particular wireless MIDI devices using Touch OSC on iPhone/ iPad has opened up a range of simple and complex interfaces at a low cost and has added a mobility of interaction that has had a profound effect on the ways in which players can participate in networked improvisations. It is this idea of new forms of participation that Assoc Prof Barbara Adkins has alerted us to in her sociological analysis of using jam2jam with people with disability. I too have experienced quite profound interactions with young people with down syndrome. What we are beginning to notice is that the technology is beginning to disappear in the process. Whilst there are still instances where technical help is required to keep the network functioning, the quality of performance, inter player interaction and the creative output is mind-blowingly good. The only way I can describe it at the moment is to suggest a metaphor of a playground that children can just be let loose in. My devotion to constructivist epistemology around what Jerome Bruner & Seymour Papert describes as constructionism or Discovery learning seems to suggest a kind of digital pragmatism. Read More
Author Archives: dillonsc
Hagholm: Tales of Originality & Music
In 2008 whilst on sabbatical at Lund University Malmo Academy of Music I met an incredible librarian by the name of Peter Berry. The message of save to DISC to document innovation using new media was a seed in Peter’s imagination that led the passionate fiddle player to contribute a chapter about a school teacher musician by the name of Abraham Hagholm (1811-1890) to the 3rd book in the Meaningful Music making for life series: Songs of Resilience. Peter’s passionate and thorough ethnomusicological study of the disabled Swedish folk musician has now blossomed into a book: Abraham fran Godegard published by Musikhogskolan i Malmo. I was intriuged by the wonderful story of a musician who was severely disabled who was dedicated to collecting, curating and arranging dance music for fiddle. This is a fascinating story and great scholarship on the part of Peter Berry in undertaking this important documenting of Swedish musicological cultural heritage. Congratulations to Peter on his fine work!
Music & Me: a sound ecology
Music and Me: a sound ecology on Prezi
A Prezi for a postgraduate seminar given by Dr Steve Dillon 11th January 2012 at Griffith University Mt Gravatt. Many thanks to Dr Georgina Barton and Dr Kay Hartwig for the invitation.
Christmas for Scattered People
Dear scattered friends,
A quick catch-up before Christmas. Needless to say, the men are still in detention at Pinkenba – sleeping during the day, on the internet at night searching for news of their homeland.
sleep all day
surf at night
the internet – a lonely light
on all we know
and our tears will flow
as we surf the net at night
homeland is weeping
news of the day
stories we’re reading
break our hearts but we can’t turn away
There is a Christmas tree prominently located in the common room where we gather with our guitars. Not a common sight for the Persians and the Iraqis, those from Afghanistan, Kuwait and Syria. But it’s there anyway. Hopefully by osmosis, the message of peace on earth will find its way into this jaded context. We resisted any inclination to sing Christmas carols apart from John Lennon’s classic ‘War is over – if you want it’:
and so this is Christmas
for weak and for strong
for rich and for poor ones
the world is so wrong
Read More
Martin Buber: A philosophy of relationships
Martin Buber’s Philosophy of relationships is highly influential on the development of what we call relational pedagogies. He called it Philosophical Anthropology.
Listen to Jewish Philosophy- Martin Buber.mp3
Martin Buber was born in pre-Nazi Austria and emigrated to Israel in 1938 where he spent much of the rest of his life. He grappled with Zionism, Jewish thought, secular philosophy and politics and the result is a body of thought very much based on relationships.
Martin Buber’s philosophy concerning what he calls Inclusion is central to the understanding of non reciprocal relationships such as teaching or therapy. It is truly about the recognition of the others humanity thru the act of being human and the acknowledgement of the power differential in these relationships.
It has become such a strong part of my own approach to Music Meaning and Transformation and becomes a relational pedagogy that guides the ethics of the transaction. For us making music provides a framework for wordless interaction with others.