Report on the 10th International Conference of Students of Systematic Musicology (SysMus17)

Abstract

The 10th annual International Conference of Students of Systematic Musicology (SysMus) took place on September 13–15, 2017, at Queen Mary University of London (UoL). The SysMus series has established itself as an international, student-run conference series aimed at introducing graduate students to networking and discussing their work in an academic conference environment. The term “Systematic Musicology,” first coined by Guido Adler (1885), nowadays covers a wide range of systematic or empirical approaches to theoretical, psychological, neuroscientific, ethnographic, and computational methodologies in music research. Presentations for SysMus17 focused on three central topics in relation to music: cognition and neuroscience, computation, and health and well-being. Each of these topics was the subject of workshops as well as keynotes by Prof. Lauren Stewart (Goldsmiths University of London and Music in the Brain Centre, Aarhus University), Prof. Elaine Chew and Dr. Marcus Pearce (both Queen Mary UoL), Dr. Daniel Müllensiefen (Goldsmiths UoL), and Prof. Aaron Williamon (Royal College of Music). Further presentations addressed issues relating to harmony and rhythm, musicians and performance, music and emotion, and sociology of music. This year’s conference brought together early-career researchers from the fields of musicology, psychology, and medicine, allowing them to socialize, share their work, and gain insight into interdisciplinary approaches to their subjects. SysMus17 was organized by students at Queen Mary’s Music Cognition Lab and was particularly marked by the series’ 10th anniversary, the live streaming of all presentations via social media, and a carbon-offsetting Green Initiative. The proceedings of SysMus17 will be available on demand from the conference website ( www.sysmus17.qmul.ac.uk ) and the videos will be made available for public access.